Bursa Malaysia eases on selling pressure

KUALA LUMPUR: Bursa Malaysia finished the week lower today on selling pressure as investors were concerned about the trade war between US and China.
At 5pm, the FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) ended 11.65 points lower at 1,865.22 from Thursday's close of 1,876.87.
The key index opened 16.29 points lower at 1,860.58 and moved between 1,857.26 and 1,867.16 throughout the day.
Affin Hwang Investment Bank Vice-President/ Head of Retail Research, Datuk Dr Nazri Khan Adam Khan, said the selling pressure was caused by knee-jerk reaction and could be seen across Asia, Europe and US.
"But I expect this is only to be a short term. When it becomes a reality, the market will recover," he told Bernama.
He said US proposal to impose tax on Chinese imports was not expected to impact Malaysia much as the country mostly exported directly to the US.
"Countries that are most affected are those that have global production chain of Chinese export such as South Korea and Taiwan. These countries exported to Chinese first before exporting further to US," he said.
Nevertheless, he said, other countries' reaction to US protectionism policy could pose a threat to Malaysia as an exporting country.
"These protectionism policy will cause other countries to react and that is what we fear," he added.
Among banking heavyweights, Maybank and Public Bank lost four sen each to RM10.50 and RM24 respectively, TNB slipped two sen to RM15.76, CIMB shed eight sen to RM7.21 and Petronas Chemicals eased three sen to RM8.18.
Of the active counters, Globaltec and PUC slipped half-a-sen each to 4.5 sen and 17 sen respectively and Sino Hua-an lost 2.5 sen to 36 sen.
Sapura Energy added one sen to 55 sen while Vizione was flat at 15 sen.
Market breadth was negative with losers thumped gainers by 827 to 190, with 320 counters unchanged, 558 untraded and 18 others suspended.
Volume fell to 2.09 billion units worth RM2.15 billion from 2.28 billion units worth RM2.06 billion on Thursday.
The FBM Emas Index decreased 99.39 points to 13,060.66, FBMT 100 Index eased 88.66 points to 12,844.52 and the FBM Emas Shariah Index declined 80.699 points to 13,198.82.
The FBM 70 went down 136.28 points to 15,538.93 and the FBM Ace lost 90.89 points to 5,681.92.
Sector-wise, the Finance Index slipped to 166.721 points to 18,209.03 and the Industrial Index decreased 31.28 points to 3,240.42 while the Plantation Index went up 6.7 points to 8,048.7.
Main Market volume declined to 1.41 billion units worth RM2.01 billion, from 1.51 billion units worth RM1.94 billion yesterday.
Volume on the ACE Market decreased to 291.02 million shares valued at RM50.87 million, from Thursday's 421.15 million shares valued at RM59.89 million.
Warrants' volume expanded to 379.6 million units worth RM89.83 million, from 346.93 million units worth RM58.91 million previously.
Consumer products accounted for 66.05 million shares traded on the Main Market, industrial products (498.41 million), construction (102.31 million), trade and services (501.01 million), technology (57.21 million), infrastructure (4.47 million), SPAC (33.69 million), finance (66.15 million), hotels (236,000), properties (64.61 million), plantations (15.58 million), mining (244,300), REITs (6.67 million), and closed/fund (nil). — Bernama