KUALA LUMPUR: Blue chips managed to edge higher early Friday after an initial slump, with Petronas-linked stocks, Genting and Tenaga Nasional shoring up the FBM KLCI.

At 9.19am, the KLCI was up 1.66 points or 0.1% to 1,603.53. Turnover was 226.91 million shares valued at RM141.50mil. There were 115 gainers, 233 losers and 184 counters unchanged.

Asian shares hobbled near four-month lows and crude oil plunged on worries the trade spat was developing into a more entrenched strategic dispute between the world's two largest economies, pushing investors to safe-haven assets, Reuters reported.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan stood flat, hovering near its fresh four-month low marked on Thursday, and was on track for a third straight weekly loss, down 0.9% so far on the week. Japan's Nikkei average dropped 0.6%.

On Thursday’s corporate results, Kenanga Research said they were disappointing as one-third of 12 results came below expectations while the remaining results were within expectations.

As for the technical outlook for the KLCI, it said the index was still on a downward trend and there was no technical indicator that shows a potential reversal is at play. 

“From here, continuous global negative news and overall weak investor sentiment will likely see the index head towards its supports at 1,585 (S1) and 1,570 (S2),” it said.

Petronas Dagangan and Petronas Gas rose 18 sen each to RM24.88 and RM16.48.

Hong Leong Bank was up 16 sen to RM19.46 while Digi added eight sen to RM4.63, Genting seven sen to RM6.40 and Tenaga six sen to RM11.72.

Dayang, which came under heavy selling pressure, inched up two sen to 91 sen with 11.3 million shares done.

Nestle was the top gainer, up 80 sen to RM147.70 and Heineken gained eight sen to RM23.78. F&N fell 32 sen to RM33.26 and Dutch Lady 20 sen to RM63.70 while Ajinomoto was down 12 sen to RM17.40 and BAT 10 sen to RM33.32.

KL Kepong lost 14 sen to RM24.02 and PPB Group 10 sen to RM18.34 as crude palm oil prices slumped.