Cautious start for blue chips

KUALA LUMPUR: Blue chips fell in early trade on Thursday, April 6, which was not unexpected after the second day of losses on Wall Street, sparked by the Greek debt crisis, but the selling pressure seemed to have eased from Wednesday.

At 9.11am, the FBM KLCI fell 3.21 points to 1,332.44. Turnover was 31.23 million shares valued at RM33.24 million. There were 62 gainers, 91 losers and 93 stocks were unchanged. The cautious sentiment saw about 1,395 counters untraded.

Hwang DBS Vickers Research said there could be a bit more downside to go but the selling pressures should ease off on our Malaysian stock exchange judging by its fairly resilient performance yesterday.

Last night, major U.S. share indices tumbled further – down by between 0.5% and 0.9% at the closing bell – on continued fears of a contagion effect from the sovereign debt crisis in Greece spreading over to other parts of Europe.

“Still, for now at least, the selling mood is not panicky as reflected on the futures market. For example, the June month futures contract for the bellwether DJIA was hovering at 10,857 this morning, just marginally below the cash level of 10,868.

“Back home, the benchmark FBM KLCI is expected to show a negative bias ahead, though it will probably not drop below yesterday’s intra-day low of 1,324 anytime soon,” said the research house.

KL Kepong was the top loser, down 14 sen to RM16.34, Shell lost 10 sen to RM10.70 while Sime shed eight sen to RM8.55. Maybank and Genting fell four sen each to RM7.59 and RM6.81.

Tanjong bucked the trend among blue chips, rising 14 sen to RM17.76 while CIMB edged up 10 sen to RM14.30.