KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia’s blue-chip stock index was little moved while regional markets had a mixed reaction following the US Federal Reserve’s latest comments over the interest rate environment.
The FBM KLCI was up 0.35 points to 1,576.32 at the lunch break, with the broader market registering 555 decliners to 413 gainers and 476 unchanged.
The share turnover was 2.36 billion valued at RM1.45bil.
While the US lending rate was left unchanged, as expected, remarks by Fed chair Jerome Powell that there will not likely be any rate hikes helped to lift sentiment over equities.
Gainers on the FBM KLCI include Maybank up five sen to RM9.78, MISC rising four sen to RM8 and MR DIY adding five sen to RM1.61.
Among the day’s actives, MYEG was down two sen to 91.5 sen, Bina Puri fell 0.5 sen to seven sen and Top Glove was flat at 88 sen.
Regionally, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng rose 2.2% to 18,155 while the Straits Times Index gained 0.27% to 3,301.
Japan’s Nikkei was nearly flat at 38,259 and China’s composite index slid 0.25% to 3,104.