Bursa M’sia ends lower on profit-taking

KUALA LUMPUR: Bursa Malaysia ended lower yesterday on profit-taking activities amid mixed sentiment across the region, a dealer said. At 5 pm, the benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) fell 4.21 points, or 0.29 per cent, to end at 1,464.00 compared to Friday’s close of 1,468.21.

The market bellwether opened 0.78 points be er at 1,468.99, its intraday high, and hit a low of 1,459.05 in the early morning session.

On the broader market, losers led gainers 445 to 431, while 393 counters were unchanged, 1,056 untraded, and 13 others suspended. Turnover eased to 2.80 billion units valued at RM1.57 billion versus 3.43 billion units valued at RM2.42 billion last Friday.

Rakuten Trade Sdn Bhd vicepresident of equity research Thong Pak Leng said the key regional indices ended mixed despite the broadly positive cues from Wall Street on Friday as investors took profit following the strong gains in the previous session.

“On the domestic front, we are positive on the return of foreign funds into the region which may boost investor sentiment.

“We expect the market uptrend to resume and anticipate the FBM KLCI to trend within the 1,450 to 1,480 range for the week with immediate resistance at 1,470 and support at 1,420,” he told Bernama.

Meanwhile, Bursa Malaysia heavyweights Maybank, IHH Healthcare and Petronas Chemicals slipped one sen each to RM8.59, RM5.99 and RM8.72, respectively. Public Bank slid seven sen to RM4.38 and CIMB dipped three sen to RM5.49.

Among the actives, Advance Synergy eased half-a-sen to 14 sen, while Techna-X and G3 Global shed half-a-sen to three sen respectively. Top Glove rose six sen to RM1.02 and Icon Offshore gained one sen to 14.5 sen.

On the index board, the FBM Emas Shariah Index declined 9.20 points to 10,520.38, the FBM Emas Index shrank 21.73 points to 10,395.17, the FBMT 100 Index narrowed 23.60 points to 10,127.99, the FBM ACE fell 83.28 points to 5,010.03, and the FBM 70 eased 6.55 points to 12,365.47.

Sector-wise, the Financial Services Index declined 64.31 points to 16,288.92, the Plantation Index shed 0.37 of-a-point to 6,902.36, the Industrial Products and Services Index inched down 0.26 of-a-point to 179.14, and the Energy Index climbed 7.43 points to 731.75.

The Main Market volume decreased to 1.85 billion shares worth RM1.31 billion from 2.09 billion shares worth RM2.05 billion on Friday.

Warrants turnover dwindled to 427.98 million units valued at RM82.36 million from 562.32 million units valued at RM111.49 million.