KL shares retreats to end lower
KUALA LUMPUR: Bursa Malaysia retreated to close at the day's low after profit taking emerged in selective heavyweights an hour before trading ended for the day.
The benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) ended 4.79 points lower at 1,737.49 from Friday's close of 1,742.28.
The key index, which opened 0.86 of-a-point better at 1,743.14, hit an intra-day's high of 1,746.72 and fluctuated within a 9.23-points range throughout the day.
On the broader market, market breadth was negative with decliners outpacing gainers by 319 to 594 while 379 counters were unchanged, 542 untraded and 20 others were suspended.
Turnover declined to 2.89 billion units, worth RM2.24 billion, versus Friday's 3.10 billion units valued at RM2.13 billion.
Buying support for Petronas Dagangan (PetDag) and other heavyweights, among oil and gas, banking and shipping-related companies, were seen supporting the composite index, which interspersed with profit-taking in blue-chips led by Petronas Gas (PetGas).
PetDag, which registered a strong core earnings in its third quarter result ended Sept 30, 2017 was the top contributor to the key index (+3.54 points), gaining RM2.10 to RM23.70, with 788,600 shares traded.
Other leading movers in the FBM KLCI component stocks were MISC, which chalked up seven sen to RM7.37, Westports added eight sen to RM3.75 while Petronas Chemicals rose one sen to RM7.45.
Meanwhile, PetGas led the list of blue-chips' losers (-1.21 points), trimming 36 sen to RM17.44. Other heavyweights; CIMB declined five sen to RM6.13 while IOI Corp and Tenaga both erased eight sen each to RM4.42 and RM14.82, respectively.
Among actives, property group, Trive was flat at 9.5 sen, Sumatec eased half-a-sen to five sen, MUI slipped five sen to 21.5 sen and Palette eased 8.5 sen to 40.5 sen while Hibiscus gained one sen to 80 sen.
The FBM Emas Index fell 24.38 points to 12,557.11, the FBMT 100 Index lost 26.39 points to 12,192.30 and the FBM Emas Syariah Index eased 16.83 points to 13,012.89.
The FBM Ace declined 41.74 points to 6,786.98 while the FBM 70 slipped 6.83 points to 15,542.04.
Sector-wise, the Finance Index was 49.42 points weaker at 16,180.30, Industrial Index fell 9.85 points to 3,191.90 and the Plantation Index trimmed 60.35 points to 7,955.66.
The Main Market volume fell to 1.80 billion units, worth RM2.03 billion, compared with Friday's 1.82 billion units worth RM2.11 billion.
Volume on the ACE Market eased to 843.76 million shares valued at RM177.36 million from 2.02 billion shares valued at RM1.96 billion, previously.
Warrants' volume firmed to 237.29 million units', worth RM33.33 million, from Friday's 218.49 million units worth RM30.06 million.
Consumer products accounted for 87.83 million shares traded on the Main Market, industrial products (355.63 million), construction (110.41 million), trade and services (784.65 million), technology (288.83 million), infrastructure (5.26 million), SPAC (320,200), finance (41.55 million), hotels (11.60 million), properties (87.95 million), plantations (10.87 million), mining (1,100), REITs (14.42 million), and closed/fund (15,000).
The physical price of gold as at 5pm stood at RM166.36 per gramme, down 90 sen from RM167.26 at 5pm last Friday. — Bernama