Monday 16 January 2012

KLCI falls; focus on Proton & DRB-Hicom’s announcements later today

KUALA LUMPUR (Jan 16): The FBM KLCI extended its losses on Monday, in line with the fall at key regional markets after Standard & Poor’s cut nine of the euro zone's 17 countries, including top-notch France and Austria, and said it would decide shortly whether to downgrade the euro zone's bailout fund.

Amidst the retreating equity, all eyes would remain trained on developments around national carmaker PROTON HOLDINGS BHD [] and conglomerate DRB-HICOM BHD [] after they requested for a trading halt in their securities pending a material announcement.

The Edge Financial Daily, citing industry sources on Monday, had reported that DRB-Hicom was understood to have secured Khazanah's 42.7% stake in Proton, with only a few minor issues left to seal the deal.

At 10.20am, the FBM KLCI fell 9.99 points to 1,513.08.

Losers beat gainers by 346 to 120, while 205 counters traded unchanged. Volume was 400.11 million shares valued at RM202.11 million.

Asian shares fell on Monday on heightening worries that the mass sovereign debt rating cuts by Standard & Poor's would further aggravate euro zone funding difficulties and recapitalisation, threatening to derail progress in resolving the debt crisis, according to Reuters.

At the regional markets, Japan’s Nikkei 225 lost 1.49% to 8,373,04, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index fell 1.04% to 19,004.10, South Korea’s Kospi was down 1.50% to 1,847.63, Taiwan’s Taiex lost 1.065 to 7,105.39, Singapore’s Straits Times Index fell 1.05% to 2,762.35 and the Shanghai Composite Index shed 0.79% to 2,226.92.

Maybank Investment Bank Bhd head of retail research and chief chartist Lee Cheng Hooi said the local market remained quiet in range-bound trading last week, adding that high volumes of between 1.51 billion to 1.91 billion shares were registered.

“Some position-squaring ahead of the weekend and the impending Chinese New Year holidays later this week caused a mild downward drift in the local bourse,” he said.

Among the major losers, Dutch Lady fell 54 sen to RM25.24, F&N 28 sen to RM18.62, Petronas Gas 18 sen to RM15.24, Genting and Bursa 14 sen each to RM10.74 and RM6.84, BHIC 13 sen to RM3.54, Top Glove, United PLANTATION []s and Tenaga down 10 sen each to RM5.11, RM19.90 and RM6.13, while Southern Acids lost eight sen to RM2.32.

Compugates was the most actively traded counter with 84.1 million shares done. The stock added one sen to 8 sen.

Other actives included Asia Media, Digistar, Hiap Teck, RedTone, Dutaland and Hovid.

Meanwhile, gainers included Malayan Flour Mills, Supermax, Aeon, Tasek, Can-One, Eng Kah, Kretam, Kian Joo and Asia Media.



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