Midday Market KLCI retraces after reaching lofty levels

by **hlk** Wed 08 May 2013, 13:25

Business & Markets 2013
Written by Surin Murugiah of theedgemalaysia.com
Wednesday, 08 May 2013 12:33
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KUALA LUMPUR (May 8): The FBM KLCI retraced and remained in
negative territory at the midday break on Wednesday after having
reached lofty levels in the aftermath of the general election.
At 12.30pm, the FBM KLCI fell 1.73 points to 1,775.00, weighed by
profit taking at key blue chips including Genting-related stocks and
Maybank.
Losers overtook gainers by 374 to 316, while 263 counters traded
unchanged. Volume was 974.5 million shares valued at RM1.43 billion.
Among the top losers in the morning session were Batu Kawan,
Gamuda, Dutch Lady, Tune Insurance, Maybank, S P Setia, Genting
PLANTATION []s, Genting Malaysia, PPB and Shell.
The actives included MAS, TH Heavy Engineering, Scomi, Alam Maritim,
Astro and CIMB.
The gainers included Nestle, Petronas Gas, Tasek, Petronas Dagangan, Public Bank, Crescendo and Asia File.
BIMB Securities Research in its monthly strategic review report released Wednesday said post-GE13 saw the FBM KLCI
flying to a high of 1,826.22 points before retracing to current levels of 1,750 points.
“Now that the market had far outpaced that of fundamentals, we believe common sense would prevail hence expect the
market to retrace given time.
“For now, we would advocate investors to lock in some profits since market valuations now are trending at a high of 16x on
2013 figures and 14.8x on our 2014 estimates,” it said.
Meanwhile, Asian shares rose on Wednesday on another record high for U.S. stocks and unexpectedly strong German
industrial orders, as investors await the first batch of April data from China for the latest take on the region's powerhouse
economy, according to Reuters.
Japanese stocks were likely to be the region's outperformer, eyeing to test a fresh five-year high. The Nikkei stock average
opened up 0.1 percent after soaring 3.6 percent to rise above 14,000 for the first time since June 2008 on Tuesday, it said.