KL shares end lower on profit-taking

KUALA LUMPUR: Bursa Malaysia ended lower yesterday on profit-taking following five consecutive days of gains, weighed down by losses in selected bluechips such as British American Tobacco.

At 5 pm, the FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI ( FBM KLCI) closed at 1,694.32 points down 5.57 points, or 0.32 per cent, against Tuesday’s close of 1,699.89 points.

The benchmark index opened 4.32 points easier at 1,695.57 today, and fluctuated between 1,692.2 and 1,698.85 throughout the day.

Losers outpaced gainers by 517 to 323 while 372 counters were unchanged, 468 untraded and 19 others were suspended.

Volume surged to 3.12 billion units worth RM2.09 billion from 2.83 billion units worth RM2.45 billion previously.

A dealer said intensifying speculations of a possible rate hike by the US Federal Reserve in September also dampened buying interest in the local market as this could potentially cause the shifting of funds from emerging economies into advanced economies.

Top losers were British American Tobacco, which lost RM1.90 to RM50.10, United U-Li fell 75 sen to RM5.15 and Oriental Holdings declined 35 sen to RM7.05.

On the other hand, among top gainers, United Plantations added 48 sen to RM27.48, AirAsia went up 15 sen to RM3.11 and PRG Holdings rose 11 sen to RM1.23.

Of the heavyweights, TNB was flat at RM14.80, Maybank eased four sen to RM8.01, Public Bank added four sen to RM19.84 and IHH increased one sen to RM6.69.

Among actives, AirAsia X added 5.5 sen to 46 sen, Borneo Oil gained one sen to 19 sen and Dagang Nexchange was 1.5 sen better at 24 sen.

On the scoreboard, the FBM Emas Index inched down 36.08 points to 11,894.53, FBMT100 Index lost 32.53 points to 11,589.81 and the FBM 70 declined 18.13 points to 13,659.03.

The FBM Emas Shariah Index was 43.63 points lower at 12,548.93 but the FBM Ace added 13.99 points to 5,600.21.

Sector-wise, the Finance Index decreased 35.44 points to 14,541.85, Industrial Index fell 22.63 points to 3,194.84 but the Plantation Index gained 0.42 of-a-point to 7,737.87.

Main Market turnover increased to 1.89 billion shares worth RM1.89 billion from 1.48 billion shares worth RM2.26 billion on Tuesday.

The ACE Market volume fell to 435.85 million units valued at RM107.07 million from 532.01 million units valued at RM107.2 million previously.

Warrants declined to 781.27 million shares worth RM92.17 million from 811.66 million shares worth RM76.89 million previously.

Consumer products accounted for 107.85 million shares traded on the Main Market, industrial products ( 202.24 million), construction ( 49.3 million), trade and services (1.08 billion), technology ( 268.36 million), infrastructure ( 5.17 million), SPAC ( 5.81 million), finance ( 64.86 million), hotels ( 1.05 million), properties (73.2 million), plantations (24.7 million), mining (2,000), REITs (12.18 million) and closed/fund (100,900).