28-May-2008 : 27-05-2008 (TUE) KLCI listless trading

Shares on Bursa continued to drift sideways on May 27. Trading was somewhat listless in the absence of fresh leads with most investors remaining firmly on the sidelines.

Wall Street was closed for trading on May 26 and thus offered no direction to market watchers. Most of the regional stock markets ended the day higher on bargain hunting -– after having fallen for the previous few consecutive trading days. Nevertheless, the overall sentiment was still one of extreme caution.

The KL Composite Index started off with small gains before selling pressure re-emerged to push it into the red. It remained in negative territory for much of the day but some buying support pared losses towards the close. The benchmark index eventually ended the day just marginally higher at 1,274.2 points.

Market breadth was in the red throughout the day. At the close, the number of losing stocks outpaced gaining ones by a ratio of roughly seven to five. Tong Herr Resources was the day's biggest loser after releasing weak 1Q08 earnings results. Some of the other big losers were Dutch Lady Milk Industries, IOI Corp and Lion Industries. Among the more actively traded gainers were shares for Petronas Dagangan and Golden Plus.

Investor interest was relatively weak. Market volume fell further to only about 433 million shares on May 27. This is down slightly from the 459 million shares transacted on May 26 and daily average of nearly 554 million shares last week.

The rights of YTL Power warrant was the most actively traded counter. It closed at 73 sen. The rights will cease trading and holders can subscribe for the warrants at 10 sen apiece.

Shares for Magnum Corp were also heavily traded ahead of the company's capital repayment exercise. The ex-offer date is fixed at May 30 for shareholders to receive RM3.45 cash per share. The stock will, subsequently, be de-listed from the local bourse.