Weak market sentiment drags Bursa Malaysia to close lower

KUALA LUMPUR: Bursa Malaysia gave up gains in the early morning session to close marginally lower today on weak market sentiment amid mixed regional market performance.
At 5pm, the FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI), which was in the red for most part of the day, finished at 1,754.92, down 0.27 of-a-point after moving between 1,752.57 and 1,758.14.
The index opened 2.95 points higher at 1,758.14 at 9am from Monday's close of 1,755.19.
However, market breadth was positive with gainers outpacing losers 457 to 385, with 381 counters unchanged, 569 untraded and 23 others suspended.
Total volume increased to 2.16 billion shares valued at RM2.22 billion from 2.04 billion shares worth RM1.71 billion yesterday.
Mercury Securities Sdn Bhd research head, Edmund Tham, said external factors remained the major factors influencing the market, hence local investors were in a cautious mode.
"It seems like US health care reform bill is still not passed, this actually affects market sentiment.
"Apart from that, regional markets also traded mixed as investors stayed on the sidelines, ahead of the European Central Bank meeting on Thursday," he said.
Regionally, South Korea's Kospi rose 0.16 of-a-point to 2,425.26, Singapore's Straits Times advanced 2.61 points to 3,300.85 while Hong Kong's Hang Seng fell 23.05 points to 26,447.53 and Japan's Nikkei 225 dipped 118.95 points to 19,999.91.
Among index-linked counters, Genting lost nine sen to RM9.45, MISC shed six sen to RM7.34, YTL and Tenaga both fell two sen to RM1.44 and RM14.16 respectively and HLBank declined 10 sen to RM15.80.
Of actives, IWCity gained 30 sen to RM1.54, Ekovest added 12 sen to RM1.17, UMWOG slipped three sen to 34 sen, MLAB was four sen lower at 28 sen and Frontkn inched up 1.5 sen to 38 sen.
The FBM Emas Index improved 14.7 points to 12,517.54, FBM Emas Syariah Index increased 18.82 points to 12,710.03 and the FBMT 100 Index advanced 10.73 points to 12,158.11.
The FBM 70 was up 60.53 points to 14,918.71 but the FBM Ace fell 25.42 points to 6,822.75.
Sector wise, the Industrial Index eased 6.5 points to 3,266.74, but the Finance Index added 16.42 points to 16,658.96 and the Plantation Index rose 23.29 points to 7,864.33.
The Main Market turnover increased to 1.51 billion shares worth RM2.07 billion from 1.17 billion shares worth RM1.53 billion on Monday.
Warrants increased to 172.18 million units worth RM14.95 million from 135.87 million units worth RM14.49 million.
Volume on the ACE Market shrank to 472.46 million shares worth RM132.54 million from 720.40 million shares worth RM163.76 million previously.
Consumer products accounted for 36.82 million shares traded on the Main Market, industrial products (271.46 million), construction (185.59 million), trade and services (635.88 million), technology (47.6 million), infrastructure (7.48 million), SPAC (350,100), finance (69.0 million), hotels (4.22 million), properties (227.93 million), plantations (14.5 million), mining (5,000), REITs (6.66 million) and closed/fund (8,200).
The physical price of gold as at 5pm stood at RM164.97 per gramme, up 84 sen from RM164.13 at 5pm yesterday. — Bernama