Bursa ends lower on selling in selected heavyweights

KUALA LUMPUR: Bursa Malaysia closed lower yesterday in line with the weaker sentiment on regional markets and amid continued selling in selected heavyweights led by Petronas Chemicals (PChem) and Telekom Malaysia (TM), dealers said.

At the close, the benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) was 8.55 points lower at 1,845.03 from Monday’s close of 1,853.58.

The index opened 1.03 points higher at 1,854.61 and moved between 1,844.07 and 1,854.61 throughout the day.

PChem and TM were the top two counters that contributed to the composite index loss today, declining 27 sen and 50 sen to RM8.43 and RM4.20, respectively. The two stocks made up a combined 7.32 points to the loss in the FBM KLCI.

A dealer said the regional markets also retreated today with investors still cautious over the implementation of the United States-China trade truce agreement over the weekend.

He also said it was still early days for the implementation of the trade truce and details from the discussions between the world’s two largest economies were still unclear, sparking some caution among investors.

Moving forward, he said the focus now may shift to the upcoming minutes of the US Federal Reserve’s last policy meeting due to be released on Wednesday.

Among other heavyweights, Maybank was flat at RM10.88, TNB lost 32 sen to RM15.34, Public Bank rose 20 sen to RM25.20, CIMB gained five sen to RM6.65 and IHH Healthcare went up 16 sen to RM6.33.

Among actives, NETX and Nexgram were flat at three sen and four sen, respectively, MyEG and YTL Power slipped 4.5 sen each to 93.5 sen and 77.5 sen, respectively, while Sapura Energy declined 1.5 sen to 76 sen.

Market breadth was negative with losers trouncing gainers 624 to 356, with 354 counters unchanged, 573 untraded and 20 others suspended.

Volume decreased to 2.35 billion units valued at RM2.74 billion from Monday’s 2.78 billion units valued at RM3.05 billion.

The FBM Emas Index decreased 35.17 points to 12,844.59, the FBM Ace lost 97.93 points to 5,281.22 and the FBMT 100 Index went down 30.57 points to 12,648.31.

The FBM Emas Shariah Index fell 75.04 points to 12,875.48 but the FBM 70 rose 59.87 points to 15,105.83.

Sector-wise, the Finance Index climbed 73.40 points to 18,445.15, the Industrial Index eased 1.51 points to 3,305.65 while the Plantation Index declined 18.68 points to 7,939.92.

The Main Market volume dipped to 1.57 billion shares worth RM2.66 billion from Monday’s 1.87 billion shares worth RM2.88 billion.

Warrants volume shrank to 337.02 million units valued at RM29.41 million from yesterday’s 572.07 million units valued at RM124.60 million.

Volume on the ACE Market rose to 453.21 million shares worth RM46.27 million from 337.31 million shares worth RM49.33 million previously.

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