KUALA LUMPUR: Blue chips fell sharply in early trade on May 18 in line with the weak performance at most regional markets as well as dragged down by weaker corporate earnings, with the KL Composite Index near the psychological important 1,000 level.
Asian markets fell this morning after the lower closing at Wall Street on May 15 as crude oil prices dropped on worries on weak demand. Light, sweet crude fell 6 cents per barrel to US$56.28 in electronic trading.
Japan's Nikkei 225 Index lost 2.86% to 9,000.35, Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index fell 2.20% to 16,422.75, Singapore's Straits Times Index down 1.79% to 2,101.53, the Shanghai Composite Index down 1.68% to 2,600.91 while South Korea's Kospi fell 1.50% to 1,370.90.
At 10am, the KLCI was down 10.94 points to 1,003.27. Losers thumped gainers by 428 to 36, while 65 counters traded unchanged. Trading volume was 381.14 million shares valued at RM232.14 million.
Among the major losers at Bursa Malaysia Securities in early trade on May 18 were Bursa Malaysia Bhd, IJM Corporation Bhd, Bumiputra-Commerce Holdings Bhd, Kulim (M) Bhd and IOI Corporation Bhd.
HwangDBS Vickers Research said investors would probably see profit-taking activities prevailing on the local stock market today.
“The KLCI may extend its consolidation pattern with a slight negative bias as institutional funds will be tempted to switch from recent winners to laggard stocks,” it said.
The research house said retail investors were expected to lock in their profits especially in the lower liners given their overbought positions. It added the two-tier market performance was already visible on May 15,, when the KLCI inched up 0.2% while both the FBM Second Board Index and the FBM Mesdaq Index were down 2.8% and 2.2%, respectively.
“On the chart, the psychological mark of 1,000 remains the immediate support level to be tested by the KLCI,” it added.
Bursa fell 25 sen to RM6.55, IJM, BCHB and Kulim fell 15 sen each to RM5.05, RM8.85 and RM5.85, respectively.
Monday, May 18, 2009
KLCI near 1,000-level
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