KL shares end marginally lower

KUALA LUMPUR: Bursa Malaysia ended yesterday’s trading marginally lower amid growing concerns over escalating international trade disputes, but the mostly positive performance of regional markets lent some support for the local bourse.

The benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI ( FBM KLCI) eased 0.82 point or 0.04 per cent to 1,812.76 after fluctuating between 1,809.24 and 1,813.94 throughout the day.

The index opened 0.83 point easier at 1,812.75 from Monday’s 1,813.58.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng increased 0.81 per cent to 27,937.28 and Korea’s Kospi advanced 0.38 per cent to 2,315.72.

A dealer said apart from Trump’s trade tantrum which could further harm the global trade relationship between the big economic blocs, further updates in Argentina have prompted all investors to focus on the emerging markets.

“Hence, the investors’ risk appetite declined due to these factors,” he explained.

For the broader market, gainers led losers 492 to 398, with 400 counters unchanged and 23 counters untraded.

Volume fell to 2.41 billion units valued at RM2.01 billion from Monday’s 2.65 billion units worth RM1.68 billion.

Of the key index stocks, PBBank added six sen to RM25.18, Tenaga advanced two sen to RM15.72, Maybank erased three sen to RM9.99, PChem declined two sen to RM9.49 and CIMB was flat at RM6.10.

Among actives, SapNRG added 1.5 sen to 36 sen. DBE and BornOil each added half-a-sen to 3.5 sen and six sen respectively while MyEG inched up nine sen to RM1.59.

The FBM Emas Index was 7.08 points better at 12,679.08, the FBMT 100 Index eased 1.46 points to 12,484.97, the FBM Emas Shariah Index gained 1.77 points to 12,756.45, the FBM 70 rose 14.21 points to 15,098.85 and the FBM Ace Index increased 89.69 points to 5,252.55.

Sector-wise, the Finance Index went up 36.56 points to 18,001.31, the Plantation Index edged up 11.48 points to 7,530.79 and the Industrial Index trimmed 0.28 point to 3,216.27.

Main Market volume narrowed to 1.54 billion shares valued at RM1.76 billion, from 1.44 billion shares valued at RM1.45 billion transacted on Monday.

Warrant turnover slipped to 588.32 million units worth RM176.3 million, from Monday’s 591.33 million units worth RM157.45 million.

Volume on the ACE Market reduced to 278 million shares worth RM56.87 million, from yesterday’s 614.03 million shares worth RM72.36 million.

Consumer products accounted for 197.13 million shares traded on the Main Market, industrial products ( 315.90 million), construction ( 121.0 million), trade and services (612.13 million), technology (96.72 million), infrastructure ( 7.30 million), SPAC (1.26 million), finance (41.60 million), hotels ( 531,300), properties ( 126.32 million), plantations ( 17.09 million), mining (29,900), REITs (6.02 million) and closed/fund (6,700).

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