Market closes lower on late profit-taking

BURSA Malaysia erased earlier gains to end mixed yesterday on late profit-taking amid the weaker performance on regional bourses, dealers said.

At 5pm, the benchmark FBM KLCI fell 0.43 of-apoint to close at 1,747.92 compared with Monday’s close of 1,748.35 after opening 0.95 of-a-point weaker at 1,747.40.

On the broader market, the tone was mixed with 420 gainers and 412 losers, 461 counters unchanged, 488 untraded and 116 others suspended.

Regionally, Japan’s Nikkei 225 fell marginally by 0.06 points to 22,011.61, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng slipped 0.32% at 28,245.54 and Singapore’s Strait Times Index fell 0.03% to 3,375.08.

A dealer noted that oil prices declined yesterday on profit-taking, however, the international benchmark Brent crude oil remained at above US$60 per barrel.

“In the early trading session, we foresee that crude oil prices will contribute to the positive sentiment and support the market, thus, investors would focus on the oil and gas counters. However, due to external factors and profit-taking in the heavyweight counters, the local bourse ended in the red,” he added.

Of the heavyweights, Tenaga improved 20 sen to RM15, Maybank added one sen to RM9.25, PBBank erased four sen to RM20.46 and Sime declined seven sen to RM9.20.

Among active counters, Huaan added eight sen to 31 sen, Trive was down half-a-sen to 13.5 sen while DNex inched up one sen at 48.5 sen – Bernama