KUALA LUMPUR: Bursa Malaysia closed in the red territory Monday on mild selling in selected heavyweights, namely in the industrial products and services, financial services and plantation counters.
At 5pm, the FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) finished 0.17% or 2.79 points lower at 1,655.40 versus 1,658.19 recorded on Friday.
Petronas Chemicals continued its downtrend following its downgrading last week, declining 11 sen to RM7.70, while Hong Leong Bank fell 26 sen to RM18.34 and KLK dipped 20 sen to RM23.70.
The benchmark index opened 0.09 of-a-point higher at 1,658.28, its intraday high, and slid to its intraday low of 1,647.70 in the afternoon session but subsequently recovered some of the losses before closing.
Losers trounced gainers by 508 to 297, while 428 counters were unchanged, 656 untraded and 18 others suspended.
Turnover fell to 2.65 billion units worth RM1.54 billion from 3.32 billion units worth RM2.09 billion recorded last Friday.
A dealer said the local bourse together with its regional peers were mostly lower in tandem with the weaker performance on Wall Street last Friday.
“There are mounting concerns among investors ahead of the two-day US Federal Open Market Committee meeting. They will continue to watch what may be in store for the US interest rates.
“And until then, we foresee a cautious trading mode,” he said, adding the cautious underlying market environment would also be influenced by fresh geopolitical concerns in the Middle East.
Regionally, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng dropped 394.14 points or 1.37% to 28,371.26, Japan’s Nikkei was 50.20 points or 0.23% lower at 21,416.79, while Singapore’s Straits Times Index fell 20.74 points or 0.61% to 3,357.22.
Among heavyweights, Maybank lost five sen to RM8.82, CIMB shed four sen to RM5.20, Public Bank was flat at RM22.88 and Tenaga added one sen to RM13.74.
As for the actives, gardening supplier Baba Eco Group Bhd, which made its debut on the LEAP Market today, rose three sen to 16 sen, Green Packet added 4.5 sen to 50.5 sen while its warrant was half-a-sen better at 12.5 sen.
The FBM Emas Index erased 19.84 points to 11,770.38, the FBMT 100 Index lost 18.81 points to 11,597.44 and the FBM Emas Shariah Index dipped 7.7 points to 12,157.16.
The FBM 70 declined 21.08 points to 14,891.95 but the FBM Ace was up by 28.36 points to 4,703.33.
Sector-wise, the Financial Services Index decreased 62.05 points to 16,533.83, the Industrial Products and Services Index eased 0.66 of-a-point to 156.15 and Plantation Index was 29.16 points lower at 6,784.84.
Main Market volume was lower at 1.67 billion shares worth RM1.36 billion from 1.77 billion shares worth RM1.47 billion last Friday.
Warrants turnover increased to 451.21 million units worth RM89.17 million versus 375.90 million units worth RM69.47 million previously.
Volume on the ACE Market ballooned to 525.33 million shares worth RM91.17 million against 352.87 million shares worth RM60.26 million last Friday.
Consumer products and services accounted for 212.60 million shares traded on the Main Market, industrial products and services (149.73 million), construction (106.99 million), technology (163.08 million), SPAC (nil), financial services (29.70 million), property (82.62 million), plantation (18.06 million), Reits (13.60 million), closed/fund (1,500), energy (560.84 million), healthcare (15.34 million), telecommunications and media (288.89 million), transportation and logistics (20.29 million), and utilities (12.60 million).
Separately, Heitech Padu Bhd, which have been queried by Bursa Malaysia over the sharp rise in its price last Friday, said the company was not aware of any rumours or report concerning the business and affairs of its group that may account for the trading activity, that requires it to comply with Paragraph 9.09 and 9.10 of the Bursa Securities LR.
At close today, its shares rose two sen to RM1.28.
The physical price of gold as at 5.00pm stood at RM182.29 per gramme, down RM1.68 from RM183.97 at 5.00pm last friday. — Bernama
