Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Asian markets remain in the red at noon

KUALA LUMPUR: The FBM KLCI remained in negative territory at the mid-day break on Tuesday, Sept 6 in line with tepid sentiment at the key regional markets, as investors remained jittery over the myriad of negative developments across the world.

European stocks tumbled 4% on Monday, with financial shares falling to their lowest in more than two years. Wall Street was closed on Monday for a holiday.

At 12.30pm, the FBM KLCI fell 7.34 points to 1,455.78, weighed by losses at select blue chips. Market breadth was negative with 441 losers, 138 gainers while 220 counters traded unchanged. Volume was 314.54 million shares valued at RM543.83 million.

The ringgit weakened 0.25% to 2.9840 versus the US dollar; crude palm oil futures for the third month delivery fell RM25 per tonne to RM2,978, crude oil lost US$2.53 per barrel to US$83.92 while gold jumped US$7.63 an ounce to US$1,907.85.

Meanwhile, regional markets continued their slide as Singapore's finance minister commented that a global recession was more likely than not as the U.S. and European economies are at "stall" speed.

Tharman Shanmugaratnam told a conference that the world has now "entered a phase where there is a self reinforcing cycle" of a loss of consumer confidence, which is leading companies to hold back on investing, according to Reuters.

At the regional markets, Japan's Nikkei 225 fell 1.83% to 8,623.94, Taiwan's Taiex lost 2.05% to 7,396.66, South Korea's Kospi down 1.10% to 1,766.18, Singapore's Straits Times Index fell 1.05% to 2,743.95, Hong Kong's Hang Seng lost 0.94% to 19,432.32 while the Shanghai Composite Index shed 0.08% to 2,476.76.

On Bursa Malaysia, Quality Concrete was the top loser and was down 29 sen to RM1.25; DiGi fell 28 sen to RM30.92, HLFG 22 sen to RM11.42, APM Automotive 20 sen to RM4.70, Hong Leong Bank 18 sen to RM12.10, Proton 16 sen to RM2.75, KYM 15 sen to RM1.75, Petronas Dagangan 14 sen to RM17.62 while Top Glove and IOI Corp lost 13 sen each to RM4.79 and RM4.57.

Among the gainers, Panasonic added 30 sen to RM21.94, Sungei Bagan and Petronas Gas up 12 sen each to RM2.82 and RM 13.38, Shell 10 sen to RM9.90, Nilai, Lafarge Malayan Cement and Genting rose nine sen each to RM1.21, RM7 and RM9.56, while Tasco and Axiata added eight sen each to RM1.60 and RM4.73.

DXN HOLDINGS BHD []'s shares were among the most actively traded this morning after its major shareholders issued a notice of conditional takeover to acquire all the remaining shares in DXN they do not own at RM1.75 per share, a 23.2% premium to the stock's closing price of RM1.42 sen on Sept 5.

DXN jumped 18.3% or 29 sen to RM1.68 with 12.1 million shares traded.

Other actives included Takaso, E&O, Axiata, Timecom and CIMB.

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