Cautious sentiment, banking sell-off drag Bursa M’sia lower

KUALA LUMPUR: Bursa Malaysia closed lower yesterday amid mixed regional peers performance as cautious market sentiment weighed on investors’ risk appetite, compounded by sell- off in banking heavyweights, dealers said.

The benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI ( FBM KLCI) fell 16.38 points or 1.02 per cent to 1,591.97 after moving between 1,586.25 and 1,610.78 throughout the session.

On the broader market, losers thumped gainers 965 to 287, while 386 counters were unchanged, 444 untraded and 13 others suspended.

Total volume increased to 7.73 billion units worth RM4.41 billion from 6.27 billion units worth RM4.0 billion on Tuesday.

Bank Islam Malaysia Bhd economist Adam Mohamed Rahim said Asian equity markets were traded cautiously ahead of the Georgia senate election as the results would determine the control of the United States’ Senate and could have implications for US Presidentelect Joe Biden’s agenda.

On the home front, he said the downbeat performance was heavily influenced by banking stocks, which languished in the red after Fitch Ratings said the rating outlook for global banks have turned negative for 2021.

“Fitch Ratings said the key issues for Malaysian banks were slow non-performing loan recognition, lower profitability and property market risks.

“The knee-jerk reaction is just temporary…they ( banking stocks) will rebound in the coming days,” he told Bernama.

Adam said the biggest decline amongst banking stocks in the FBM KLCI was CIMB, which dropped 3.3 per cent or 14 sen to RM4.14 with 14.24 million shares changing hands.

As a result, the Bursa Malaysia Financial Services Index lost 1.5 per cent during the day, he added.

This, however, was not as much as the Bursa Malaysia Construction Index, which declined by 2.6 per cent, as the sector remains clouded by the discontinuation of the Kuala Lumpur-Singapore High Speed Rail project, dampening sentiment in order book replenishment for construction and building material companies.

On the flip side, Adam said rubber glove counters such as Top Glove and Supermax saw a slight rebound of 0.7 per cent and 0.5 per cent respectively during the day after the huge sell- off seen earlier this week.

The Bursa Malaysia Healthcare Index followed suit to close 1.20 per cent higher.

Among the heavyweights, Maybank trimmed seven sen to RM8.24, Public Bank lost 28 sen to RM20.34, Tenaga erased 12 sen to RM10.42, and IHH Healthcare shed 10 sen to RM5.55.

Top Glove rose four sen to RM5.76 while Petronas Chemicals was flat at RM7.10.