KL shares end lower on profit-taking

KUALA LUMPUR: Bursa Malaysia finished marginally lower on mild profit-taking in index-linked stocks, amid the absence of retail investors in the broader market.
At 5pm, the FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) closed 1.94 points lower to settle at 1,868.58 from Monday's close of 1,870.52 after opening 5.17 points lower at 1,865.35.
The market barometer moved between 1,861.58 and 1,872.70 throughout the day.
Market breadth was negative with losers thumping gainers 794 to 253, while 387 counters were unchanged, 452 untraded and 73 others suspended.
Turnover was slightly higher at 3.25 billion units valued at RM2.89 billion from Monday's 3.0 billion units valued at RM2.49 billion.
Inter-Pacific Securities Sdn Bhd Head of Research, Pong Teng Siew, said profit-taking was seen in today's trading, while the winding down of penny stocks also showed that the retail investors were not active.
"However, for the composite index, the counters are resilient in spite of the sell-down, which takes place after a few days of a strong run.
"Composite index counters are doing well to help keep the index afloat even as losers are significantly higher that the gainers," he told Bernama.
He further explained that foreign net buying continued for the ninth consecutive week, which kept the composite index to remain high.
This was following the indications given by Bank Negara Malaysia about the overnight policy rate (OPR) earlier and the latest revision would see the foreign buyers hold on to the banking stocks for awhile as they projected an improvement in lending margin, which will subsequently boost the banks' earnings.
Last Thursday, BNM increased the OPR by 25 basis points to 3.25% at the Monetary Policy Meeting as it decided to normalise the degree of monetary accommodation amid the economy being firmly on a steady growth path.
Among index-linked counters, PBBank added eight sen to RM21.98, CIMB gained nine sen to RM7.25, Maybank lost 10 sen to RM10.10, Tenaga erased six sen to RM15.78 while IHH and Maxis were unchanged at RM6.01 and RM6.08, respectively.
Top losers, PPB declined 10 sen to RM17.46, Digi shed five sen to RM4.95, and KLK eased four sen to RM25.22.
Among actives, Sumatec was 1.5 sen lower at eight sen, UMWOG was down one sen to 32.5 sen, SapNRG declined two sen to 75.5 sen and HuaAn lost three sen to 53 sen.
The FBM Emas Index lost 71.06 points to 13,371.86, the FBMT 100 Index went down 60.49 points to 13,063.17 and the FBM Emas Shariah Index declined 95.63 points to 13,658.05.
The FBM 70 dipped 236.78 points to 16,473.55 and the FBM Ace slipped 96.0 points to 6,490.91.
Sector-wise, the Finance Index was down 43.61 points to 17,897.15, the Plantation Index fell 19.13 points to 8,049.13, and the Industrial Index slipped 15.24 points to 3,387.42.
The Main Market volume rose marginally to 1.97 billion units valued at RM2.7 billion from 1.96 billion units worth RM2.32 billion yesterday.
Volume on the ACE Market stood at 584.88 million shares worth RM93.53 million from Monday's 584.57 million shares valued at RM101.24 million.
Warrants volume swelled to 687.45 million units worth RM97.15 million from 451.03 million units worth RM70.36 million recorded on Monday.
Consumer products accounted for 218.09 million shares traded on the Main Market, industrial products (461.30 million), construction (71.50 million), trade and services (919.29 million), technology (95.65 million), infrastructure (8.89 million), SPAC (1.04 million), finance (70.48 million), hotels (767,700), properties, (81.51 million), plantations (35.68 million), mining (373,000), REITs (7.47 million), and closed/fund (7,000).
Bursa Malaysia and its subsidiaries will be closed for trading tomorrow and on Thursday in conjunction with Thaipusam and Federal Territory Day public holidays. — Bernama