KL shares end lower on profit-taking

KUALA LUMPUR: Shares on Bursa Malaysia ended the day in negative territory as traders took profits, with the benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) 4.47 points easier.
The key index ended at 1,826.31 points at the close, after hovering between 1,823.61 and 1,831.35 throughout the day.
Losers overwhelmed gainers 478 to 291 while 325 counters were unchanged, 686 untraded and 12 others were suspended.
Total volume rose to 2.91 billion units worth RM1.57 billion from yesterday's 2.15 billion units worth RM2.45 billion.
A dealer said traders were increasingly concerned over the continuously depressed crude oil prices, Greek debt issues as well as the implementation of the Goods and Services Tax.
"The downtrend in the local market is also in line with the bearish performance of regional markets, as traders took cues from the weaker performance on Wall street," he added.
Heavyweight Maybank added 1.0 sen to RM9.34, Tenaga was flat at RM14.36 while Public Bank lost 8.0 sen to RM18.80 and Axiata shed 2.0 sen to RM7.06.
Xinghe, which topped the most active counters, saw its shares traded 3.0 sen lower at 9.0 sen followed by Ingenuity, which was flat at 8.5 sen.
On the scoreboard, the FBM Emas Index declined 45.71 points to 12,517.67, the FBMT100 Index decreased 42.58 points to 12,217.39 and the FBM Ace was down 54.06 points to 7,066.1.
The FBM Emas Syariah Index went down 28.08 points to 13,094.07 and the FBM 70 decreased 95.86 points to 13,392.77.
On a sectoral basis, the Industrial Index erased 6.86 points to 3,348.1 points, the Plantation Index fell 4.87 points to 7,797.11 and the Finance Index depreciated 24.72 points to 16,210.04.
Main Market volume decreased to 853.8 million shares worth RM1.32 billion from 1.2 billion shares worth RM2.24 billion on Tuesday.
Turnover on the ACE Market rose to 1.97 billion shares worth RM221.55 million from yesterday's 866.54 million shares worth RM195.09 million.
Warrants contracted to 78.04 million units worth RM21.35 million from 86.57 million units worth RM16.44 million previously.
Consumer products accounted for 110.45 million shares traded on the Main Market, industrial products (158.46 million), construction (17.77 million), trade and services (343.94 million), technology (70.63 million), infrastructure (6.39 million), SPAC (16.46 million), finance (29.7 million), hotels (3.19 million), properties (73.62 million), plantations (12.33 million), mining (125,000), REITs (10.69 million) and closed/fund (NIL).
The physical price of gold as at 5pm stood at RM135.89 per gramme, down 2 sen from RM137.91 at 5pm yesterday. – Bernama