KUALA LUMPUR: Blue chips slipped in early Friday trade as investors took some money off the table after the nine-day rally with IHH Healthcare, Tenaga and CIMB among the decliners ahead of the weekend.

At 9.14am, the KLCI was down 2.53 points or 0.14% to 1,756.71. Turnover was 227.24 million shares valued at RM133.84mil. There were 156 gainers, 150 losers and 213 co with unters unchanged.

Asian stocks eked out modest gains as investor caution prevailed amid concerns about the European Union imposing retaliatory tariffs on US goods while US President Donald Trump's criticism of Federal Reserve policy knocked the dollar, Reuters reported.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan inched up 0.1%. South Korea's KOSPI edged up 0.07%. Japan's Nikkei reversed earlier modest losses to rise 0.2%, lifted as the dollar came off lows versus the yen.

Kenanga Research said technically, the outlook for the KLCI is positive-bias as evidenced by stronger stance on MACD and RSI indicators. 

“From here, we expect a possible short breather before continuation towards next resistance at 1,790 (R1) and 1830 (R2) further up.  Meanwhile, support levels can be identified at 1,720 (S1) and 1,700 (S2),” it said.

At Bursa, Nova Wellness charged ahead, gaining 24 sen to 79 sen when it made it debut on the ACE Market. There were nearly 50 million shares done.

Nestle fell 60 sen to RM147.20 and Dutch Lady lost 28 sen to RM66.72 with 100 shares done each while BAT gave up six sen to RM33.62.

Top Glove lost 12 sen to RM10.28, CCB nine sen to RM1.84. IHH was down seven sen to RM5.93, Tenaga six sen to RM14.86 while IOI Corp and CIMB shed five sen each to RM4.45 and RM5.81.

However, Serba Dinamik added seven sen to RM3.63 and AirAsia six sen to RM3.29. Kossan and MAHB were up six sen each also to RM4.62 and RM9.14.