KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 8 (Bernama) -- Bursa Malaysia closed almost flat on Tuesday as buying interest rotated away from index heavyweights towards smaller-cap construction stocks, with sentiment affected by geopolitical uncertainty, said an analyst. At 5 pm, the FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) eased 0.39 of a point to 1,714.40 from Monday’s close of 1,714.79. The benchmark index opened 1.65 points lower at 1,713.14 and moved between 1,710.44 and 1,714.50 throughout the trading session. The broader market was almost evenly balanced, with decliners leading gainers 548 to 546, while 598 counters were unchanged, 1,107 were untraded and 25 were suspended. Turnover expanded to 4.13 billion units valued at RM3.14 billion from 3.60 billion units valued at RM2.45 billion on Monday.
Maintain BUY recommendation with target price (TP) of RM3.77 Results GKent reported 3QFY17 results with revenue of RM122.1m (-26% QoQ, +26% YoY) and core earnings of RM23.7m (+27% QoQ, 3QFY16: RM0.4m). The significant YoY earnings increase for the quarter was due to a low base witnessed last year due to cost of variation orders (VOs) incurred (but this was subsequently recognised in 4QFY16). Cumulative 9M core earnings (ex. forex) totalled RM58.2m, surging almost 3-folds YoY. This strong growth was attributed to (i) 51% revenue increase, (ii) PBT margin expansion from 10% to 18.3% and (iii) lower base last year due to a weak 3Q as earlier elaborated. Deviation 9M earnings made up 94% of our full year forecast which is above our expectation. The surprise results were due to (i) stronger-than-expected engineering margins given continued VO works for the LRT extension and (ii) higher- than-projected JV contribution associated with LRT3 PDP. Dividends A 2nd ...