Bursa Malaysia ends on easier note

KUALA LUMPUR: Bursa Malaysia finished on an easier note today on mild selling in blue-chips, dealers said.
At 5pm, the benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) ended 0.12 of-a-point lower 1,740.93 compared with Thursday's close of 1,741.05, after opening 3.63 points better at 1,744.68 earlier today.
On the broader market, losers led gainers by 483 to 337 with 435 counters unchanged, 557 untraded and 18 others were suspended.
Volume fell to 2.80 billion shares worth RM1.97 from 2.91 billion shares worth RM2.09 billion on Thursday.
Inter-Pacific Securities Head of Research, Pong Teng Siew, said the sell-down of
stocks held by foreigners was seen today.
"We foresee the value of foreign selling would be more or less the same today. On Thursday, net selling by foreign investors stood at RM72.3 million," he said.
Pong said penny stocks led the market with investors focused on Diversified Gateway Solutions Bhd (DGSB) and Trive Property Group Bhd.
He said technology stocks took a backseat and they were not leading today, which was unusual.
At the close, Maybank fell a sen to RM9.24, Tenaga and Sime were both flat at RM14.90 and RM9.08, respectively, PBBank added two sen to RM20.46, CIMB rose five sen to RM6.21, Axiata gained two sen to RM5.43, IHH climbed four sen to RM5.60.
Among active counters, Hubline and PUC added 1.5 sen each to 17 sen and 19.5 sen, DGSB added 2.5 sen to 7.5 sen, KeyAsic shed half-a-sen to 24 sen and Trive declined one sen to 11.5 sen.
The FBM Emas Index rose 3.97 points to 12,563.16, BMT100 Index was 3.19 points higher at 12,197.48 and the FBM 70 gained 19.13 points to 15,478.46.
The FBM Emas Shariah Index fell 3.52 points to 13,027.28 and the FBM Ace dipped 13.16 points to 6,857.27.
Sector-wise, the Finance Index was 22.84 points better at 16,283.44 and the Industrial Index went up 1.01 points to 3,177.61.
The Plantation Index was 25.68 points weaker at 7,990.95.
The Main Market volume fell to 1.69 billion units worth RM1.79 billion from 2.08 billion units worth RM1.94 billion yesterday.
Volume on the ACE Market ballooned to 927.9 million shares valued at RM166.6 million from 511.64 million shares valued at RM122.03 million on Thursday.
Warrants volume declined to 171.57 million units worth RM17.20 million from 307.76 million units worth RM22.86 million previously.
Consumer products accounted for 86.16 million shares traded on the Main Market, industrial products (304.42 million), construction (118.16 million), trade and services (528.92 million), technology (396.28 million), infrastructure (5.22 million), SPAC (251,000), finance (36.79 million), hotels (971,500 million), properties (172.02 million), plantations (36.34 million), mining (12,400), REITs (3.77 million), and closed/fund (4,000).
The physical price of gold as at 5pm stood at RM168.18 per gramme, up 24 sen from RM167.94 at 5pm yesterday. — Bernama