KUALA LUMPUR: Blue chips struggled in early Thursday trade with the key FBM KLCI dipping into the red, led by Genting Bhd , trailing the key Asian markets.At 9.31am, the KLCI was down 0.44% or 0.03% to 1,667.83. Turnover was 168.52 million shares valued at RM70.13mil. There were 156 gainers, 123 losers and 229 counters unchanged.Reuters reported Asian stocks advanced early Thursday, propelled by strong US earnings and a jump in oil prices to a 15-month high on Wednesday, ahead of the third and final U.S. presidential debate before the Nov 8 election.MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan rose 0.2%. Japan's Nikkei gained 0.3%.US crude slipped 0.2% to US$51.50 after surging 2.6% to close at US$51.60 in the previous session. It earlier touched US$51.93, the highest since July 2015.Brent crude climbed 1.9% to US$52.67 on Wednesday.At Bursa, Genting Bhd and Hong Leong Bank fell six sen each to RM8.03 and RM13.18 while Gamuda and Hap Seng were down four sen each to RM4.88 and RM7.69.Khind was the top loser, down 15 sen to RM2.40 while Aeon Credit lost 10 sen to RM14.56 and Shangri-La nine sen lower at RM5.21.Jerasia Capital pared some of the previous day’s gains, down 3.5 sen to 64 sen in the absence of any positive news.BAT rose 32 sen to RM48.18 and Dutch Lady 20 sen to RM60.20 while F&N added eight sen to RM24.18.KESM extended its gains, up 19 sen to RM9.98 while SHH added seven sen to RM1.87.

Source: The Star October 20, 2016 02:26 UTC