Bursa Malaysia closes lower

KUALA LUMPUR: Bursa Malaysia closed marginally lower today in tracking the insipid performance of its regional peers and weighed down by selected heavyweight stocks, dealers said.
At 5pm, the benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) was 0.21 of a point lower at 1,643.74 from yesterday's close of 1,643.95 after hovering between 1,648.70 and 1,638.50 points.
The key index opened 0.29 point higher at 1,643.66 at 9am.
Hong Leong Investment Bank said the local bourse was seen to be relatively calm despite the sharp fall on regional bourses and the 1,600 points psychological support level well defended.
A dealer said most Asian equity markets extended their fall in reacting to the overnight decline on Wall Street and amid persistent volatility in oil prices as well as heightened concern over the health of European banks which might add to the strained global economic outlook.
Market breadth was negative with losers outpacing gainers 516 to 271 with 313 counters unchanged, 650 counters untraded and 15 others suspended.
Total volume rose to 1.33 billion shares worth RM1.57 billion from Thursday's 1.23 billion shares worth RM1.41 billion.
Among heavyweights, Maybank shed three sen to RM8.51, Petronas Chemicals eased six sen to RM6.90, IHH slid one sen to RM6.49, TNB gained two sen for RM13.20, while Public Bank was flat at RM18.50.
Of the actives, Tiger Synergy eased half-a-sen to 5.5 sen, Genetec shed 2.5 sen to 19.5 sen, Xidelang improved half-a-sen to 5.5 sen and Gamuda warrant rose 5.5 sen to 25.5 sen.
On the scoreboards, the FBM Emas Index shed 3.53 points to 11,400.33, the FBM Emas Shariah Index fell 13.67 points to 12,168.12, the FBM Ace eased 13.18 points to 5,821.24, the FBM 70 rose 12.34 points to 12,631.66 and the FBMT100 Index increased 1.53 points to 11,113.69.
Sector-wise, the Plantation Index improved 22.41 points to 7,722.81, the Industrial Index added 9.03 points to 3,241.97, while the Finance Index lost 2.93 points to 13,836.70.
Main Market volume rose to 936.74 million units worth RM1.49 billion from Thursday's 823.33 million units worth RM1.33 billion.
Turnover on the ACE Market improved to 239.05 million shares valued at RM47.49 million from 206.55 million shares valued at RM39.81 million.
Warrants decreased to 157.44 million units worth RM34.67 million from 195.2 million units worth RM44.80 million.
Consumer products accounted for 156.83 million shares traded on the Main Market, industrial products (171.79 million), construction (85.04 million), trade and services (296.41 million), technology (19.36 million), infrastructure (9.78 million), SPAC (22.21 million), finance (35.22 million), hotels (900,400), properties (110.39 million), plantations (16.22 million), mining (6,000), REITs (12.58 million) and closed/fund (6,200).
The physical price of gold as at 5pm stood at RM161.07 per gramme, up RM4.34 from RM156.73 at 5pm yesterday. — Bernama