Bursa ends weaker on broad sell-off

BURSA Malaysia suffered a broad decline yesterday amid worries over the weak first-quarter earnings season and liquidity as well as the escalation in the United States-China trade war.

At 5pm, the FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) tumbled to its lowest since June 2016 to 1,601.09, a drop of 9.18 points against last Friday’s close of 1,610.27.

The benchmark index, which opened at 1,610.55, moved between a low of 1,598.60 and a high of 1,611.47 during the day.

Losers outnumbered gainers 815 to 140 with 260 counter sun changed, 694 untraded and 24 others suspended.

Turnover increased to 2.48 billion shares worth RM1.65 billion

from 2.29 billion shares valued at RM1.84 billion recorded last Friday.

Inter-Pacific Securities Sdn Bhd head of research Pong Teng Siew said the “bad” combination of weak domestic liquidity and corporate earnings would continue to hinder foreign investors from participating in the market.

“If you have a strong profit performance and weak liquidity, the stock market can still to climb as the foreign funds would recognise that the fundamentals are strong, but now we have generally weak corporate earnings and liquidity, so there is no incentive for them to come in,” he said.

Among the heavyweights, Maybank rose one sen to RM8.98 and Public Bank added six sen to RM22.32 while Petronas Chemicals was five sen lower at RM8.84.

Of the actively-traded stocks, Bumi Armada and Lambo declined one sen each to 19 sen and seven sen, respectively, while Sapura Energy lost half-a-sen to 31 sen.

The FBM Emas Index declined 100.42 points to 11,274.54, the FBMT 100 dipped 89.50 points to 11,115.55 and the FBM 70 lost 216.18 points to 13,862.87.

The FBM Emas Shariah Index erased 141.33 points to 11,409.10 and the FBM ACE Index was down 113.97 points to 4,418.60.

Main Market volume rose to 1.56 billion shares valued at RM1.57 billion from 1.48 billion shares valued at RM1.67 billion recorded last Friday.

Warrants turnover decreased to 181.85 million units worth RM22.63 million versus 439.87 million units worth RM122.21 million last Friday.

Volume on the ACE Market increased to 740 million shares valued at RM57.29 million from 366.31 million shares valued at RM49.46 million previously.

The FBM KLCI futures contract on Bursa Malaysia Derivatives ended lower yesterday.

At the close, May 2019 dropped 15.5 points to 1,592.5, June 2019 and September 2019 slipped 14.5 points each to 1,594.5 and 1,593.0, respectively, while December 2019 was 16.5 points weaker at 1,590.5.

Turnover slipped to 7,392 lots from 10,028 lots last Friday, and open interest decreased to 33,171 contracts from 34,405 contracts.