Malaysia Market: KLCI trends higher at mid-morning

The FBM KLCI advanced at mid-morning on Monday, Nov 14 in line with the gains at key regional markets, and the higher close at Wall Street last Friday.

Asian stocks and the euro rose on Monday on hopes that new leaders in Italy and Greece will take decisive action to save their indebted nations from bankruptcy and fend off a wider financial meltdown in the euro zone, according to Reuters.

The FBM KLCI rose 11.53 points to 1,480.28.

Gainers led losers by 359 to 96, while 211 counters traded unchanged. Volume was 582.71 million shares valued at RM271.34 million.

At the regional markets, Japan’s Nikkei 225 rose 1.55% to 8,646.45, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index gained 2.21% to 19,560.18, the Shanghai Composite Index added 0.70% to 2,498.45, Taiwan’s Taiex rose 2.10% to 7,522.16, South Korea’s Kospi gained 1.99% to 1,900.55 and Singapore’s Straits Times index advanced 1.44% to 2,831.09.

BIMB Securities Research in a note Nov 14 said that although the clarity of both Greece and Italy had improved, the volatility of global equity markets remains high.

Investors’ sentiments was now running at high sensitivity to the Eurozone as outlook remains hazy with the slightest of uncertainty may well bring back the skepticism, it said.

Nonetheless at least for now, confidence was back with most major European bourses all charted positive gains on Friday, it said.

The research house said that as a consequence the Dow Jones Industrial Average also posted a strong comeback to breach the 12,000 mark again with a 259.89 point jump.

Regionally, it was a rather mixed Friday with the FBM KLCI ended 3.90 points lower to close at 1,468.75, just off the 1,470 immediate support level, it said.

“Looking ahead, we believe the current market consolidation to continue until we see more committed buying emerges.

“For now, we expect the benchmark index to retest the 1,490 resistance level over the immediate term,” it said.

Among the gainers on Bursa Malaysia, DiGi rose 62 sen to RM34.40, United PLANTATION []s 40 sen to RM18.30, Dutch Lady 30 sen to RM21.30, MAHB 28 sen to RM6.48, Harvest Court and TSH Resources up 24 sen each to RM1.89 and RM3.69, Genting Plantations and KLK 22 sen each to RM8.14 and RM21.12, while BAT was up 20 sen to RM45.90.

Ingenuity Solutions was the most actively traded counter with 66.95 million shares done. The stock gained 1.5 sen to 7 sen.

Other actives included Compugates, Hibiscus warrants, DPS, SYF and Flonic.

Decliners at mid-morning included HELP, IJM Plantations, LTKM, Sunchirin and CMMT.(theedgemalaysia.com)