Bursa Malaysia ends lower

KUALA LUMPUR: Bursa Malaysia ended the week lower, weighed down by selling in heavyweight stocks led by the plantation and telecommunications sectors.

The local bourse was tracking the regional peers performance, taking the cue from China’s weakest growth for the third quarter, a dealer said.

At 5 pm, the benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI ( FBM KLCI) slipped 3.35 points to 1,571.15 from Thursday’s close of 1,574.50.

The index, which opened 1.78 points easier at 1,572.72, moved between 1,567.85 and 1,576.87 throughout the day.

On the broader market, losers led gainers 432 to 401, with 398 counters unchanged, 772 untraded and 14 others suspended.

Turnover rose to 2.95 billion shares worth RM2.22 billion from 2.33 billion shares worth RM1.88 billion on Thursday.

Regionally, Japan’s Nikkei added 0.18 per cent to 22,492.68, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index decreased 0.48 per cent to 26,719.58, South Korea’s Kospi fell 0.83 per cent to 2,060.69, and Singapore’s Straits Times Index slid 0.38 per cent to 3,114.28.

A dealer said Asian shares were mostly lower, paring earlier gains as Chinese gross domestic product slid to less than expected growth of six per cent in the third quarter, the slowest pace in almost three decades.

However, he said China’s monthly industrial production data beat estimates to grow at 5.8 per cent year- on-year in September, recovering after slowing sharply in the previous month.

Bursa Malaysia stayed in the red for most of the trading session, weighed by profit-taking in selected heavyweight stocks, which saw range-bound trading on blue- chips, he said.

“The broad market conditions remained largely mixed due to the confluence of profit-taking and bargain-hunting activities that kept the near-term upsides modest for now,” he added.

Among heavyweights, Maybank shed two sen to RM8.50, Tenaga added four sen to RM13.80, Petronas Chemicals gained four sen each to RM7.38, and IHH lost seven sen to RM5.67.

Public Bank was RM19.28.

Of the most actives, KNM Group and MyEG climbed one sen each to 45.5 sen and RM1.26, respectively, MTAG improved 2.5 sen to 51 sen and Bumi Armada edged up half-a-sen at 44.5 sen.

Sapura Energy eased half-asen to 27 sen, while PUC was flat at 5.5 sen.

The FBM Emas Index decreased 20.03 points to 11,189.74, the FBMT 100 Index shed 20.74 points to 11,004.80 and the FBM 70 reduced 15.40 points to 14,121.77.

The FBM Emas Shariah Index was 39.40 points lower at 11,801.23, while the FBM Ace declined 11.42 points to 4,783.24.