KUALA LUMPUR: CIMB Group again led blue chips higher early Friday on fund buying but Tenaga Nasional’s  lacklustre earnings weighed down the FBM KLCI.

At 9.30am, the KLCI was up 0.59 of a point or 0.03% to 1,770.66. Turnover was 147.18 million shares valued at RM95.85mil. There were 159 gainers, 169 losers and 218 counters unchanged.

Asian stock markets sagged on Friday after US tech shares retreated from recent rallies, though optimism on US corporate earnings and the global economy underpinned overall sentiment, Reuters reported.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan fell 0.4% in early trade, with Samsung Electric, Asia's largest company by market capitalisation, dropping 2.0%.

Japan's Nikkei shed 0.3%.

The wire reported that oil prices extended a rally into a sixth day on Friday, hovering near eight-week highs on a decline in US inventories and Opec's ongoing efforts to curb production to ease a global glut.

Brent crude futures were up two cents at US$51.51 per barrel at 0059 GMT. US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures were up three cents at US$49.07 per barrel.

CIMB rose nine sen to RM6.68 with 3.03 million shares done while Bursa added eight sen to RM10.68 but Tenaga fell eight sen to RM14.16.

Tenaga’s core net profit for the nine months ended May 31, 2017 was slightly below expectation at 73% of CIMB Equities Research’s full year and 71% of consensus due to higher-than-expected effective tax rate in 3QFY17.

Ajinomoto rose 34 sen to RM25.46, Scientex 11 sen to RM8.69 while Batu Kawan rebounded 10 sen to RM19.04. Superlon added nine sen to RM2.54.

Petron added 10 sen to RM8.60 and Hengyuan eight sen higher at RM6.44.

KESM rose 18 sen to RM15.98 and Vitrox eight sen higher at RM4.54.

New Hoong Fatt fell 40 sen to RM3.94, Tasek 16 sen to RM12.84, Fibon lost eight sen to 64.5 sen.

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