Bursa Malaysia turns red at closing, bucks regional trend

KUALA LUMPUR: Bursa Malaysia gave up early gains to close lower yesterday, succumbing to selling pressure, and bucked the regional trend as investors turned cautious ahead of Chinese New Year celebration.

At 5pm, the benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) eased 5.30 points or 0.34 per cent to 1,573.33 from 1,578.63 at Friday’s close.

The key index opened 1.81 points higher at 1,580.44 and moved between 1,572.77 and 1,586.06 throughout the day.

In contrast, most regional bourses saw upbeat trading sentiment with Japan’s Nikkei 225 surging 2.12 per cent to 29,388.50, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng added 0.11 per cent to 29,319.47, while Singapore’s Straits Times Index gained 0.93 per cent to 2,934.29.

The higher oil prices today also failed to boost Bursa Malaysia.

At the time of writing, global benchmark Brent Crude rose 1.20 per cent to US$60.05 a barrel while the West Texas Intermediate gained 1.13 per cent to US$57.49 per barrel.

On the broader market, losers outpaced gainers 620 to 569, while 434 counters were unchanged, 517 untraded and 11 others suspended.

Total volume however rose to 7.04 billion units worth RM4.50 billion from 6.09 billion units worth RM4.15 billion recorded at Friday’s close.

Meanwhile, among the heavyweights, Maybank and Tenaga lost three sen each to RM7.83 and RM9.67, respectively, PBBank declined four sen to RM4.08, Topglov and Hartalega declined 34 sen each to RM6.27 and RM12.90, respectively.

Of the actives, DNEX and its warrant gained nine sen and 1.5 sen to 37 sen and 6.5 sen respectively, Luster added halfa-sen to 22 sen, AT was flat at 16.5 sen and Trive erased five sen to 20.5 sen.

Among top gainers, Tasco added 51 sen to RM5, SJC rose 41 sen to RM1.78, SCIB improved 40 sen to RM2.50 and Hengyuan gained 36 sen to RM5.83.

BLDPLNT topped the losers list, erasing 49 sen to RM7.51, followed by Dutch Lady which dipped 46 sen to RM34.40, while UWC shed 34 sen to RM12.88.

On the index board, the FBM Emas Index fell 22.93 points to 11,479.39, the FBMT 100 Index went down 30.04 points to 11,199.52 and the FBM Emas Shariah Index was 48.93 points weaker at 13,013.93.

The FBM 70 inched down 10.48 points to 15,049.34 and FBM ACE decreased 89.53 points to 10,771.70.

Sector-wise, the Financial Services Index contracted 11.5 points to 14,565.40, the Plantation Index declined 17.98 points to 7,122.73, while the Industrial Products and Services Index was 1.51 points be er at 178.06.

The Main Market volume improved to 4.53 billion shares worth RM3.57 billion from 3.32 billion shares worth RM2.90 billion recorded at Friday’s close.