Bursa Malaysia ends broadly lower

KUALA LUMPUR: Bursa Malaysia ended broadly lower acrossthe-board yesterday, tracking the easier regional markets which were badly affected by massive sell-offs on Wall Street overnight, dealers said.

At 5 pm, the FT SE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) was down 40.62 points, or 2.19 per cent, to 1,812.45 from Monday’s close of 1,853.07.

The index moved between 1,795.85 and 1,820.37 throughout the day after opening 38.64 points weaker at 1,814.43.

Market breadth was broadly negative, with losers outpacing gainers by 1,208 to 119, with 203 counters unchanged, 314 untraded and 19 others suspended.

Turnover rose to 5.20 billion shares worth RM5.32 billion from Monday’s 2.65 billion shares worth RM2.84 billion.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average, which closed 4.6 per cent lower on Monday, dragged down regional indices with Japan’ s Nikkei 225 falling 4.73 per cent, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index tumbled 5.12 per cent and Singapore’s Straits Times Index lost 2.06 per cent.

Affin Hwang Investment Bank Vice-President/Head of Retail Research, Datuk Dr Nazri Khan Adam Khan said the global driven sell-offs were triggered amid the expectation that interest rates around the world would be increased by central banks.

“This also means that the era of zero interest rate is over,” he told Bernama.

Nazri Khan said the sliding global stock markets trend was just a correction, which was anticipated to happen.

“We have not seen a major market pullback at a global level in the past 18 months.

“We think this what we call the ‘black swan’ or dramatic slide which happens once in 10 years,” he said.

He also said that the current situation should stimulate more buying in the market, which is regarded as one of the great bargains in the 10-year period.

Of the heavyweights, Maybank fell two sen to RM 10.00, Ten a ga eased 24 sen to RM 15.58, Public Bank eased 50 sen to RM 21.48 and CI MB declined 22 sen to RM6.87.

The top losers were Nestle, which lost RM 2.30 to RM 114.30, BAT dipped RM 1.32 to RM 32.00 and Pet D ag down RM1.12 to RM24.58.

Among the active counters, Sumatec was flat at 7.5 sen, Netx eased half-a-sen to four sen while Sapura Energy added 1.5 to 72 sen.

The FBM Emas Index gave up 293.68 points to 12,927.01, FBMT 100 Index was down 283.69 points to 12,642.04 and the FBM 70 declined 356.73 points to 15,845.40.

The FBM Emas Shariah Index fell 275.30 points to 13,214.12 and the FBM Ace decreased 210.02 points to 6,141.41.

Sector-wise, the Finance Index slid 393.42 points to 17,360.27, Industrial Index was 108.52 points lower at 3,224.04 and the Plantation Index dipped 88.88 points to 7,894.12.

Consumer products accounted for 141.23 million shares traded on the Main Market, industrial products (762.84 million), construction (178.88 million), trade and services (1.62 billion), technology (177.96 million), infrastructure (12.66 million), SPAC (6.21 million), finance (161.51 million), hotels (2.00 million), properties, (231.63 million), plantations (58.05 million), mining (734,000), REITs (18.42 million), and closed/fund (81,000).

For further information on stocks and prices, please visit www.bursamalaysia.com.