Bursa Malaysia ended the morning trading session lower on Friday as cautious sentiments in regional markets prevailed, dealers said.
At 12.30pm, the FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) slid 3.44 points to 1,540.31 from Thursday’s close of 1,543.75.
The benchmark index, which opened 6.8 points weaker at 1,536.95, moved between 1,533.8 and 1,539 during the session.
Market breadth remained negative with decliners outpacing gainers 481 to 340, while 399 counters were unchanged, 1,103 untraded and 38 others suspended.
Turnover amounted to 2.29 billion units worth RM1.16 billion.
Rakuten Trade Sdn Bhd’s equity research vice president Thong Pak Leng said the local sentiment on Friday may be affected by the Wall Street performance overnight, thus he expects the index to hover within the 1,540-1,550 range.
“Wall Street ended lower as reality bites after the United States (US) producer price index came in hotter than expected, thus pushing the US 10-year yield higher to 4.292 per cent. As such, the DJI Average lost 138 points while the Nasdaq declined 49 points,” he told Bernama.
Among the heavyweights, Maybank Bhd, Public Bank Bhd and Petronas Chemicals Group Bhd went up two sen each to RM9.67, RM4.25 and RM6.89, respectively, CIMB Group Holdings Bhd gained 14 sen to RM6.58 while Tenaga Nasional Bhd declined eight sen to RM11.48.
As for the active counters, Hong Seng Consolidated Bhd and TWL Holdings Bhd were flat at 1.5 sen and 3.5 sen, respectively, Eversendai Corp Bhd earned half a sen to 33.5 sen and Econpile Holdings Bhd rose 1.5 sen to 45 sen.
On the index board, the FBM Emas Index was 11.9 points weaker at 11,466.95, the FBMT 100 Index trimmed 10.58 points to 11,131.05, the FBM Emas Shariah Index decreased 44.79 points to 11,491.71 and the FBM ACE Index fell 31.79 points to 4,695.79, while the FBM 70 Index improved 43.76 points to 15,626.89.
Sector-wise, the Financial Services Index shed 17.86 points to 17,223.5, while the Plantation Index reduced by 19.2 points to 7,296.56, the Industrial Products and Services Index inched down 0.14 of a point to 175.96, and the Energy Index advanced by 1.88 points to 919.65, Bernama reported.
