Bursa Malaysia closes lower

KUALA LUMPUR: Bursa Malaysia closed lower yesterday, dampened by cautious sentiment on US policy uncertainty, offsetting positive factor from China’s better than expected gross domestic product growth.

The benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI ( FBM KLCI) declined 1.62 points to end at 1,664.89 compared with Thursday’s close of 1,666.51.

After opening 1.35 points lower at 1,665.16, the index moved within the range of 1,664.89 and 1,667.92 throughout the day.

Affin Hwang Investment Bank Vice-President/Head of Retail Research Datuk Dr Nazri Khan Adam Khan said the market was dominated by cautious sentiment ahead of Donald Trump’s inauguration as US president scheduled at midnight (Malaysia time).

“All is cautious, focusing on the US despite better China’s (gross domestic product) GDP growth,” he told Bernama.

He said Trump’s first speech as US president was expected to give more direction on his government’s policy, including that of economy.

China’s GDP grew 6.8 per cent in the fourth quarter, beating economists forecast of 6.7 per cent, signalling growth was stabilising in the world’s second largest economy.

On the scoreboard, the FBM Emas Index fell 18.57 points to 11,668.55, the FBMT 100 Index decreased 18.7 points to 11,372.54 and the FBM Emas Syariah Index edged down 14.939 points to 12,157.94.

The FBM 70 shed 51.14 points to 13,346.94 and the FBM Ace Index fell 25.55 points to 4,985.8.

Sector- wise, the Industrial Index decreased 17.72 points to 3,125.53, the Finance Index declined 31.47 points to 14,707.21, but the Plantation Index improved 1.9 points at 7,915.12.

Among heavyweights, Maybank added two sen to RM8.27 while TNB and Sime Darby lost two sen each to RM13.86 and RM8.52, respectively.

Public Bank and Petronas Chemicals were flat at RM20.10 and RM7.19, respectively.

For actives, UMW- OG fell 15.5 sen to 73 sen and Hibiscus Petroleum slipped half a sen to 46.5 sen.

Icon Offshore added three sen to 46.5 sen and TH Heavy Engineering climbed half a sen to 16 sen, while Matang was flat at 13.5 sen.

Losers edged gainers by 428 to 300, with 404 counters unchanged, 608 untraded and 20 others suspended.

Volume decreased to 1.58 billion shares worth RM1.59 billion from yesterday’s 1.87 billion shares worth RM1.73 billion.

Main Market turnover fell to 1.11 billion units worth RM1.52 billion from Thursday’s 1.32 billion units worth RM1.63 billion.

ACE Market volume shrank to 320.40 million shares valued at RM51.01 million from Thursday’s 381.62 million shares valued at RM66.79 million.

Warrants decreased to 139.18 million units worth RM19.09 million from 163.54 million units worth RM25.27 million previously.

Consumer products accounted for 127.44 million shares traded on the Main Market, industrial products ( 220.85 million), construction ( 60.13 million), trade and services ( 497.33 million), technology ( 63.17 million), infrastructure ( 13.1 million), SPAC (2.22 million), finance (50.41 million), hotels ( 67,000), properties ( 56.69 million), plantations ( 12.22 million), mining (1,000), REITs (12.58 million), and closed/fund (8,300). — Bernama