KUALA LUMPUR: As expected, Malaysia’s blue chips started Friday on a weak note as sentiment was dented by the overnight fall on Wall Street with BIMB Securities Research expecting the FBM KLCI to see some support at the 1,845 level

At 9,03am, the KLCI was down 7.95 points to 1,845 due mainly to losses in Tenaga’s share price. Turnover was 40.79 million shares valued at RM24.64mil. There were 70 gainers, 78 losers and 115 counters unchanged.

BIMB Securities Research said Wall Street investors finally came to their senses as the obsession of record highs was now a supplementary matter.

The research house said the sharp overnight fall on Wall Street was prompted by the less than sanguine economic data from China and the US as reasons for the selling. European stocks suffered the same fate as investors took profit.

In Asia, performance of equities had been mixed as profit taking was also rather apparent with Thailand due to prevailing political turmoil lost a whopping 5.2% on the opening day of 2014.

“Locally, the FBMKLCI lost 14.01 points to close at 1,852.95 as local institutions took profit after a solid 2013. In fact, yesterday’s net participation saw foreign funds trickling back with RM11.4mil.

“We expect the local bourse to weaken further today on the back of more profit taking with the index to see some support at the 1,845 level,” said BIMB Research.

BAT fell the most, down 88 sen to RM63.28 while Aeon Credit lost 22 sen to RM14.22 and IHH seven sen lower at RM3.83.

Petronas Chemicals fell 14 sen to RM6.87 with 100 shares done, MISC lost 13 sen to RM5.47 and KL Kepong 12 sen to RM24.20.

MAHB and Tenaga lost eight sen each to RM8.80 and RM11.10 while IHH fell seven sen to RM3.83 and DiGi six sen to RM4.86.

Scomi inched up 0.5 sen to 37 sen and Scomi Engineering added 2.5 sen to 82.5 sen.

– THE STAR