Bursa Malaysia ends broadly lower
KUALA LUMPUR: Bursa Malaysia ended broadly lower across-the-board today, tracking the easier regional markets which were badly affected by massive sell-offs on Wall Street overnight, dealers said.
At 5pm, the FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) was down 40.62 points, or 2.19%, to 1,812.45 from Monday's close of 1,853.07.
The index moved between 1,795.85 and 1,820.37 throughout the day after opening 38.64 points weaker at 1,814.43.
Market breadth was broadly negative, with losers outpacing gainers by 1,208 to 119, with 203 counters unchanged, 314 untraded and 19 others suspended.
Turnover rose to 5.20 billion shares worth RM5.32 billion from Monday's 2.65 billion shares worth RM2.84 billion.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average, which closed 4.6% lower on Monday, dragged down regional indices with Japan's Nikkei 225 falling 4.73%, Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index tumbled 5.12% and Singapore's Straits Times Index lost 2.06%.
Affin Hwang Investment Bank Vice-President/Head of Retail Research, Datuk Dr Nazri Khan Adam Khan said the global driven sell-offs were triggered amid the expectation that interest rates around the world would be increased by central banks.
"This also means that the era of zero interest rate is over," he told Bernama.
Nazri Khan said the sliding global stock markets trend was just a correction, which was anticipated to happen.
"We have not seen a major market pullback at a global level in the past 18 months.
"We think this what we call the 'black swan' or dramatic slide which happens once in 10 years," he said.
He also said that the current situation should stimulate more buying in the market, which is regarded as one of the great bargains in the 10-year period.
Of the heavyweights, Maybank fell two sen to RM10.00, Tenaga eased 24 sen to RM15.58, Public Bank eased 50 sen to RM21.48 and CIMB declined 22 sen to RM6.87.
The top losers were Nestle, which lost RM2.30 to RM114.30, BAT dipped RM1.32 to RM32.00 and PetDag down RM1.12 to RM24.58.
Among the active counters, Sumatec was flat at 7.5 sen, Netx eased half-a-sen to four sen while Sapura Energy added 1.5 to 72 sen.
The FBM Emas Index gave up 293.68 points to 12,927.01, FBMT 100 Index was down 283.69 points to 12,642.04 and the FBM 70 declined 356.73 points to 15,845.40.
The FBM Emas Shariah Index fell 275.30 points to 13,214.12 and the FBM Ace decreased 210.02 points to 6,141.41.
Sector-wise, the Finance Index slid 393.42 points to 17,360.27, Industrial Index was 108.52 points lower at 3,224.04 and the Plantation Index dipped 88.88 points to 7,894.12.
The Main Market volume rose to 3.37 billion units valued at RM5.03 billion from Monday's 1.62 billion units valued at RM2.67 billion.
Volume on the ACE Market increased to 1.03 billion shares worth RM134.78 million from yesterday's 558.41 million shares worth RM87.06 million.
Warrants volume advanced to 782.75 million units valued at RM146.34 million from 469.68 million units valued at RM80.13 million recorded previously.
Consumer products accounted for 141.23 million shares traded on the Main Market, industrial products (762.84 million), construction (178.88 million), trade and services (1.62 billion), technology (177.96 million), infrastructure (12.66 million), SPAC (6.21 million), finance (161.51 million), hotels (2.00 million), properties, (231.63 million), plantations (58.05 million), mining (734,000), REITs (18.42 million), and closed/fund (81,000). — Bernama