Bursa Malaysia ends lower amid lacklustre trading
KUALA LUMPUR: Bursa Malaysia closed lower today amid a lacklustre trading day following subdued sentiment as the US Federal Open Market Committee begins its two-day meeting, dealers said.
At the close, the key FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) fell seven points to end at 1,776.66 against yesterday's close of 1,783.66.
Earlier, the benchmark index opened 0.02 of-a-point higher at 1,783.66.
A dealer said the US central bank was expected to leave interest rates unchanged when it announced the outcome of the meeting on Wednesday.
However, he said investors were awaiting the details on the central bank's reduction of US$3.7 trillion (US$1=RM4.18) in treasuries and mortgage-backed securities bought during the financial crisis.
On the scoreboard, the FBM Emas Index was 44.24 points lower at 12,654.52, the FBMT 100 Index went down 44.97 points to 12,314.23 and the FBM Ace erased 38.14 points to 6,661.16.
The FBM Emas Syariah Index retreated 26.07 points to 12,860 and the FBM 70 fell 41.79 points to 15,131.22.
Sector-wise, the Plantation Index decreased 24.44 points to 7,953.82, the Finance Index fell 72.42 points to 16,762.25 and the Industrial Index went down 1.16 points to 3,235.42.
Market breadth was negative as losers led gainers by 517 to 337 with 393 counters unchanged, 590 untraded and 23 others suspended.
Volume rose to 2.01 billion units worth RM1.92 billion from 1.99 billion units worth RM1.6 billion yesterday.
For heavyweights, Maybank added one sen to RM9.81 and Public Bank gained two sen to RM20.60.
TNB lost two sen to RM14.56, Sime Darby eased one sen to RM9.18 and CIMB shed 23 sen to RM6.46.
Among active counters, Hubline perked half-a-sen to 6.5 sen and Scomi garnered 2.5 sen to 18.5 sen.
MQ Tech eased one sen to 6.5 sen, Sino Hua-An lost two sen to 23.5 sen and Vizione slipped half-a-sen to 15 sen.
The Main Market volume increased to 1.49 billion shares worth RM1.83 billion from Monday's 1.23 billion shares worth RM1.48 billion.
Volume on the ACE Market shrank to 379.7 million shares valued at RM73.41 million from 610.23 million shares valued at RM100.76 million previously.
Warrants decreased to 125.24 million units worth RM15.76 million from yesterday's 142.79 million units worth RM20.61 million.
Consumer products accounted for 75.95 million shares traded on the Main Market, industrial products (293.23 million), construction (123.37 million), trade and services (768.65 million), technology (62.84 million), infrastructure (5.2 million), SPAC (8.15 million), finance (54.87 million), hotels (3.81 million), properties (74.22 million), plantations (17.9 million), mining (11,500), REITs (7.11 million), and closed/fund (53,900).
The physical price of gold as at 5pm stood at RM170.63 per gramme, down 73 sen from RM171.36 at 5pm yesterday. — Bernama