AirAsia at highest since March 6

KUALA LUMPUR: Shares of AirAsia Bhd rose to its highest since March 6 at RM3.69 in late afternoon trade on Thursday as analysts were upbeat on the outlook for its earnings.

At 3.22pm, AirAsia was up 15 sen to RM3.69. There were 7.59 million shares done.

The FBM KLCI was up 4.15 points to 1,589.05. Turnover was 946.86 million shares done valued at RM717.36mil. There were 283 gainers, 350 losers and 334 stocks unchanged.

RHB Research Institute said it expected AirAsia's 1QFY12/12 results to meet its forecast but trail the market expectations. It maintained tis market perform and fair valye of RM3.72.

"We expect 1QFY12/12 core PBT to come in at RM175-RM180mil that will have accounted for 23-24% of our full-year PBT forecast but only 19% of the full-year consensus profit-before-tax," it said.

It estimated that 1QFY12/12 PBT would have declined by about RM106mil sequentially mainly due to a RM85mil negative top-line impact coming from an actual 1% sequential decline in the number of passengers carried and a 7% sequential decline in average passenger revenue based on its estimate.

Another factor was that fuel cost that would have been RM21mil higher on the back of an estimated 5% rise in average jet fuel cost.