KUALA LUMPUR: Blue chips surged early Friday, the start of a new trading month for February, as the FBM KLCI jumped 11 points to 1,879 before giving up all the gains as investors turned cautious.

At 9.19am, the KLCI was down 1.56 points or 0.08% to 1,867.02. Turnover was 390 million shares valued at RM310mil. There were 240 gainers, 226 losers and 283 counters unchanged.

The ringgit was trading at 3.8869 to the US dollar.

Kenanga Investment Bank Research said the technical outlook for the KLCI remains positively bias with key SMAs in a “Golden Crossover” state whilst momentum indicators display uptrend. 

“Any weakness from here is likely to be shallow and temporary where healthy pullback is deemed necessary before springing higher towards resistance level of 1,888 (R1) and a higher level at 1,910 (R2).

“Immediate support can be identified at the 1,840 (S1) level and psychological level of 1,800 (S2); keen investors may implement buy-on-dip strategy,” it said.

Weighing down the FBM KLCI were Petronas Chemicals and CIMB. Petronas Chemicals fell 15 sen to RM7.99 and CIMB 13 sen lower at RM7.12.

MPI fell 30 sen to RM10.20 as analysts were concerned about  its outlook in the second half due to higher raw material costs, coupled with unfavourable forex.

Top Glove lost 24 sen to RM9.03 and Hartalega 12 sen down to RM11.68.

Dutch Lady fell the most, down RM1 to RM62.10, Perstima 18 sen to RM4.04 and Aeon Credit 10 sen lower at RM13.36.

Nestle was the top gainer, up RM2.30 to RM115.60, Petronas Dagangan added 92 sen to RM25.54 and Petrona Gas 38 sen to RM18.24 while HLFG added 28 sen to RM18.84 and MAHB 24 sen to RM9.29.

PPB Group was up 12 sen to RM17.58, AirAsia 11 sen to RM4.25 and F&N 10 sen to RM29.26.