Bursa Malaysia ends at intra-day low

KUALA LUMPUR: Continued selling pressure in finance and trade and service counters dragged Bursa Malaysia to close at an intra-day low today, dealers said.
At 5pm, the FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) finished at 1,648.08, down 11.52 points from Wednesday's close of 1,659.60, after moving to a high of 1,661.65 during the day.
The benchmark index opened 1.41 points lower at 1,658.19.
On the broader market, losers overwhelmed gainers 500 to 277 with 379 counters unchanged, 516 untraded and 17 others suspended.
Volume fell to 1.45 billion units worth RM1.93 billion from 1.68 billion units worth RM1.98 billion on Wednesday.
A dealer said most Asian stock markets were also weak on growing concern over the outcome of next week's US presidential election.
According to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Tuesday, Republican candidate, Donald Trump, has narrowed his deficit to Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, to seven percentage points from 15 points late last week.
He said most of the market players were for a Clinton victory as she was expected to maintain the status quo.
Meanwhile, the US Federal Reserve has maintained its policy ahead of the US presidential election next week as expected.
The decision, however, kept the door open for a possible rate increase in its December meeting as it was waiting for the coast to clear amid the tightening presidential race.
MISC and CIMB were the top contributors to the loss in the benchmark index, declining 27 sen and 12 sen each to RM7.23 and RM4.76, respectively, giving a combined loss of 3.85 points.
Among other heavyweights, TNB slipped four sen to RM14.28, Maybank fell three sen to RM7.78, Public Bank gave up two sen to RM19.84 and Petronas Chemicals erased six sen to RM6.94.
Of the actives, Nexgram eased half-a-sen to 4.5 sen, FGV jumped 12 sen to RM1.94, Dnonce added one sen to 30.5 sen while Focus Dynamics was flat at eight sen.
The FBM Emas Index declined 69.73 points to 11,614.38, FBMT 100 Index fell 70.56 points to 11,321.19 and the FBM Emas Syariah Index eased 64.49 points to 12,232.02.
The FBM 70 declined 53.22 points to 13,516.29 and the FBM Ace fell 2.07 points to 5,002.93.
The Finance Index dropped 112.50 points to 14,301.98 and the Industrial Index gave up 16.50 points to 3,139.46.
The Plantation Index rose 19.09 points to 7,785.12.
Main Market turnover fell to 911.18 million units worth RM1.85 billion from 1.11 billion units worth RM1.89 billion yesterday.
The ACE Market volume declined to 236.37 million shares valued at RM30.30 million from 259.46 million shares valued at RM37.64 million on Wednesday.
Warrants decreased to 300.31 million units worth RM48.37 million from 314.13 million units worth RM49.90 million previously.
Consumer products accounted for 70.19 million shares traded on the Main Market, industrial products (213.24 million), construction (70.90 million), trade and services (287.35 million), technology (30.03 million), infrastructure (7.77 million), SPAC (72.77 million), finance (52.75 million), hotels (87,000), properties (37.14 million), plantations (54.88 million), mining (47,000), REITs (14.04 million) and closed/fund (nil).
The physical price of gold as at 5pm stood at RM168.69 per gramme, down 53 sen from RM169.22 at 5pm yesterday. — Bernama