Market Close KLCI extends gains on bargain hunting; Ringgit weakens

by **Cals** Thu 27 Aug 2015, 00:30

Market Close
KLCI extends gains on bargain hunting; Ringgit weakens

KUALA LUMPUR (Aug 26): The FBM KLCI gained 16.43 points or 1.05% as investors bargain hunted for beaten-down Malaysian shares.
At 5pm, the KLCI closed at 1,580.37 as blue chips like Tenaga Nasional Bhd ([You must be registered and logged in to see this image.] Financial Dashboard) and Sime Darby Bhd ([You must be registered and logged in to see this image.] Financial Dashboard) rose among Bursa Malaysia's top gainers.
JF Apex Securities Bhd head of research Lee Chung Cheng told theedgemarkets.com: “Investors were definitely out bargain hunting today following the poor market performance as a result of the red card from China markets, and blue chips were definitely the top picks."
Tenaga closed 48 sen or 5% higher at RM11.02 after falling to a fresh low at RM10.36 last Monday.
Today, the KLCI extended gains after rising 31.8 points or 2.1% yesterday. On Monday, the KLCI tumbled 42.53 points or 2.7% to close at its intraday low of 1,532.14.
Today, Bursa Malaysia saw 2.15 billion shares valued at RM2.27 billion traded. There was an equal number of gainers and decliners at 407 each while 320 counters remained unchanged.
Major decliners included Far East Holdings Bhd ([You must be registered and logged in to see this image.] Financial Dashboard) and Signature International Bhd ([You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]Financial Dashboard) while the most actively-traded counter was AirAsia Bhd ([You must be registered and logged in to see this image.] Financial Dashboard).
The ringgit was closely watched after the currency depreciated to a fresh level against the US dollar today following China's interest rate cut.
The ringgit weakened to a new point at 4.2995 versus the US dollar. At the time of writing, the exchange rate was 4.2460
Abroad, China shares were in the spotlight following news on its monetary policy. The Shanghai Composite Index was down 1.3% while Hong Kong's Hang Seng fell 1.52%.
Elsewhere, Japan's Nikkei 225 was up 3.2% while South Korea’s Kospi rose 2.57%.
Reuters reported that Asian shares struggled on Wednesday as investors feared fresh rate cuts in China would not be enough to stabilise its slowing economy or end a collapse in Chinese stocks that is wreaking havoc in global markets.