KLCI stumbles, plantations slide at midday

KUALA LUMPUR: The fall in crude oil and crude palm oil futures dragged plantation stocks into the red and the losses pushed the 100-stock KL Composite Index into the negative zone in the morning session Friday.

The KLCI was the second worst performer among all the major Asian markets after Taiwan, as Malaysia was also weighed down by domestic issues including the political developments.

At 12.30pm, the KLCI had fallen 15.57 points to 1,105.6. Turnover was 166.41 million shares valued at RM451.2mil. There were 106 gainers, 352 losers while 194 counters were unchanged.

Taiwan’s Weighted Index fell 103.42 points or 1.48% to 6,871.09, Singapore’s Straits Times Index fell 1% to 2,835.53, Japan’s Nikkei 225 0.55% lower at 12,817.47, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index 0.12% lower at 21,709.52 but Shanghai’s A Share Index bucked the trend to rise 0.28% to 2,823.92.

Crude oil fell to US$130 per barrel while crude palm oil futures skidded RM70 to RM3,365 per tonne.

Plantation stocks led the losers’ list with KL Kepong falling RM1.20 to RM14, Batu Kawan 50 sen to RM9.25, Sime Darby and Asiatic declined 40 sen each to RM7.70 and RM6.35, Kulim 35 sen to RM7.95 and Kulim-WB 40 sen to RM5.60.

IOI Corp was the most active with 14.94 million shares done and it tumbled 50 sen to RM5.60.

Telekom rose six sen to RM3.40, Resorts four sen to RM2.57 and AirAsia two sen to 91.5 sen in active trade. Maybank rose 10 sen to RM7.0 while BAT added 25 sen to RM41.50.

The Star

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