Mid-morning Market: KLCI remains in negative zone on regional weakness, lack of catalysts

KUALA LUMPUR (June 27): The FBM KLCI remained in negative territory at mid-morning on Friday in line with the regional weakness following the overnight profit taking at Wall Street.

At 10am, the FBM KLCI fell 4.81 points to 1,885.38

Gainers edged losers by 200 to 194, while 275 counters traded unchanged. Volume was 285.72 million shares valued at RM192.36 million.

The top losers included Public Bank, Panasonic, Genting, IJM Plantations, Uzma, Petronas Dagangan, Puncak Niaga, Astro Malaysia and See Hup.

The actives included Utopia, Mexter, MAS, Xinghe, Sumatec, Ideal Jacobs, Premier and Seal.

The gainers included Fima Corp, KLK, Takaful, United Plantations, Genting Plantations, Nestle, SAM, UMW, Pestech and Kim Loong.

At the regional markets, Asian shares got off to a tentative start on Friday after a weak performance on Wall Street, and global bond yields dropped on creeping doubts on the strength of the U.S. economic recovery, according to Reuters.

Japan's Nikkei dipped 0.3 percent in early trade while South Korean shares fell 0.5 percent. MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was flat, it said.

BIMB Securities in a note Friday said investors took some profit on Wall Street as concerns over interest rates re-emerged.

Nonetheless, the DJI Average did stage an afternoon comeback to erase the hefty morning losses and closed at 16,846.13, down a mere 21 points, it added.  

The research house said that in Europe, stocks were also rattled by the US interest rate news as most closed broadly lower.

It said that in Asia, equities rebounded after a mini correction the last few days.

“Locally, the FBM KLCI also staged a last minute comeback having been in the red for most of the trading day. The index closed flat at 1,889.97 or 0.42 point higher having touched a day’s low of 1,882.25.

“The late comeback may have been induced by the regional uptrend as all of the major markets closed higher. Yesterday’s foreign participation was minimal with a net outflow of almost RM16 million.

“We are expecting another lacklustre trading today with the index to close lower around the 1,880/85 region. Immediate support level is seen at 1,880,” it said.