KUALA LUMPUR: Blue chips closed near the day's low on Friday, weighed down by selling of CIMB, Maxis and Hong Leong Bank but e-service providers like MyEG, Prestariang attracted strong trading interest.

At 5pm, the KLCI was down 9.81 points or 0.58% to 1,669.45. Turnover was 2.94 billion shares valued at RM2.28bil. There were 401 gainers, 453 losers and 412 counters unchanged.

While the stock market remained in the doldrums due to concerns about corporate earnings, the ringgit extended its advance against the US dollar, pound sterling, euro and the Singapore unit. 

The ringgit rose by 0.07% to the greenback to 4.1125, advanced by 0.07% to the pound to 5.1567, climbed 0.23% to the euro at 4.6309 and was up by 0.34% against the Singapore dollar to 3.0272.

The firmer industrial production data also provided some support, with the May industrial production index  by 4% on-year, exceeding the Bloomberg survey of 3.5%.

Among the banks, Hong Leong Bank fell 38 sen to RM18.60 and wiped out 1.43 points, CIMB lost 14 sen to RM5.20 and erased 2.37 points while Maybank lost three sen to RM8.92. 

Public Bank fell four sen to RM22.96 and RHB Bank two sen to RM5.73 while AmBank was unchanged at RM4.31.

As for telcos, Maxis fell 12 sen to RM5.63 and wiped out 1.63 points, Telekom 10 sen lower at RM4.33 while Axiata and Digi were unchanged ast RM5.18 and RM5.05.

US light crude oil rose 48 cents to US$60.68 and Brent gained 69 cents to US$67.21. Petronas Chemical rose two sen to RM8.42 but Petronas Dagangan and Petronas Gas fell 10 sen each to RM24.76 and RM17.20. Dialog lost nine sen to RM3.38.

Crude palm oil for third month delivery eked out a RM1 gain to US$1,942 per tonne. 

KLK rose eight sen to RM24.26 but Sime Plantation lost three sen to RM4.83, IOI Corp two sen lower  to RM4.25 while PPB Group lost four sen to RM18.74.

Among the e-service providers and tech related stocks MyEG rose four sen to RM1.53, Prestariang two sen to 50 sen while Cuscapi added 2.5 sen to 21 sen.

As for the chip stocks, KESM added eight sen to RM8.29 but MPI loast 16 sen to RM9.24.

Power giant Tenaga was down four sen to RM13.68, Sime two sen lower at RM2.29, Genting down two sen to RM6.62.

On the external front, Hong Kong stocks were little changed , as investors digest a slew of China economic data released toward the end of the session to assess health of the country's economy.

Renewed worries over the US-China trade tensions offset optimism fuelled by Wall Street's fresh highs overnight. The Hang Seng index rose 0.1%, to 28,471.62, while the China Enterprises Index was unchanged at 10,788.34.

Japan's Nikkei 225 rose 0.2%, Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index added 0.14% and Shanghai's Composite Index 0.44% higher while Singapore's STI was up by 0.18%.

Meanwhile, surging US oil output will outpace sluggish global demand and lead to a large stocks build around the world in the next nine months, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said.

The forecasts appear to predict the need for producer club Opec and its allies to reduce production to balance the market despite extending their existing pact, forecasting a fall in demand for OPEC crude to only 28 million barrels per day (bpd) in early 2020, Reuters reported.