Fund buying of telcos pushes KLCI to record

KUALA LUMPUR: Fund buying of telecommunication stocks pushed the FBM KLCI to another intra-day record high on Tuesday following upgrades while the ringgit also strengthened to a nine-day high against the US dollar.

Key regional markets also advanced for the third day as an unexpected drop in U.S. retail sales stoked speculation Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke will hint at further stimulus on Tuesday, wire reports said.

At 12.30pm, the KLCI was up 10.27 points or 0.63% to 1,646,23. Turnover was 680.88 million shares valued RM836.32mil. There were 356 gainers, 322 losers and 294 counters unchanged.

Among the key regional markets, Japan's Nikkei 225 added 0.68% to 8,783.68; Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index 1.75% to 19,455.39; Shanghai's Composite Index 0.55% to 2,159.73; Taiwan's Taiex 0.38% to 7,116.72 and South Korea's Kospi 0.71% higher to 1,830.74 while Singapore's Straits Times Index advanced 0.74% to 3,020.98.

US light crude oil rose 15 cents to US$88.58 and Brent 10 cents to US$103.47 while spot gold was US$5.72 higher to US$1,595.13.

The ringgit was quoted at 3,1630 against the US dollar, the strongest since July 5.

Crude palm oil for third-month futures dipped RM13.3,109.

At Bursa Malaysia, Bloomberg reported Deutsche Bank had upgraded Axiata and DiGi to Buy from Hold.

Dealers said funds were picking up telco stocks, especially Axiata.

The four telcos pushed the KLCI up a combined 13.81 points. Axiata rose 35 sen to RM6.19, powering the KLCI up 6.95 points while DiGi gained 18 sen to RM4.51, nudging the index up 3.29 points. TM added 24 sen to RM6.26 and Maxis 22 sen to RM6.87.

Oriental Holdings added 31 sen to RM7.20. CIMB Equities Research has initiated coverage of the company with an Outperform recommendation. It said the target price of RM9.10 was based on 20% discount to its RNAV of RM11.40 per share.

OCK, which made its debut on the ACE Market, rose nine sen to 45 sen. It was the most active with 34.19 million shares done.

Media Chinese International jumped 23 sen to RM1.58 after proposing a 41 sen dividend per share.

However, BAT fell the most, down 40 sen to RM56.10 with only 3,100 shares done.

Cybertowers lost 28.5 sen to 61.5 sen with 11.10 million shares in the absence of any negative news, recording its fourth day of losses.

Among plantations, KLK, PPB, United Plantations and Chin Tek fell 10 sen each to RM23.84, RM15.54, RM25.90 and RM9 respectively.