KUALA LUMPUR: The FBM KLCI extended its recovery at Thursday’s open, helped higher by Wall Street’s positive performance although Nvidia’s decline in after-hours trading could put a cap on sentiment.
Blue chips on the local benchmark index continued to retrace higher after Tuesday’s slump as investors took profit from overbought valuations.
At 9am, the FBM KLCI was up 1.35 points to 1,589.26, with bank stocks doing most of the heavy lifting.
Maybank rose 11 sen to RM9.90, Hong Leong Bank gained 18 sen to RM19.92 and Public Bank added three sen to RM4.36.
Consumer counter Nestle, which has been trending higher, jumped RM1.28 to RM95.40.
“We expect the local bourse to track the Wall Street movements, but the upside might be limited as Nvidia’s results caused the stock to fall 3% in after-market
trading,” said Malacca Securities in a note.
However, the research firm reiterated its support for technology names such as Frontken Corp and Inari Amertron
given their roles as proxies for Apple, TSMC and Broadcom.
It also favoured utility stocks YTL Power and MN Holdings, as well as solar-related coutners Solarvest, Pekat and Northern Solar.
In a separate report, Rakuten Trade said the previous day’s reversal on support from local institutions was encouraging as it displayed the market’s resilience.
“For today, we expect the index to possibly trend within the 1,590-1,605 range,” it said in its review.
Among actives, NationGate dropped two sen to RM1.38, Sime Darby jumped six sen to RM1.96 and TWL was flat at 2.5 sen.