KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 12 — Bursa Malaysia ended the morning session marginally easier, dragged by losses in heavyweights, prompted by regional sentiment, dealers said.

The FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) ended the lunch break 6.94 points or 0.38 per cent lower to 1,797.27, after fluctuating between 1,788.36 and 1,805.33 throughout the morning session.

Regionally, Japan’s Nikkei 225 rose to 14,528.4 but Hong Kong’s Hang Seng declined to 22,905.76 and Singapore’s Straits Times Index inched down to 3,184.75.

HwangDBS Vickers Research said Wall Street stayed firm last night with key US stock indices ending slightly higher and hovered near their record levels as investors awaited fresh market leads.

It said the Malaysian bourse could remain in a range-bound pattern for now and that continuous blue chip consolidation was likely to pressure the KLCI to retest the key support levels at 1,800, 1,794 and 1,775 points.

“Having said that, overall market volume is expected to remain buoyant due to persistent buying interest for lower liners, ACE and penny stocks,” it added.

On the scoreboard, the Finance Index dipped 44.24 points to 16,693.971, the Plantation Index lost 26.57 points to 8,604.33 while the Industrial Index eased 15.5 points to 3,090.46.

The FBM Emas Index shed 42.26 points to 12,517.27, the FBMT100 Index declined 40.05 points to 12,239.93, the FBM Ace was 21.33 points lower at 5,891.78 and the FBM 70 slipped 16.92 points to 14,284.27.

Decliners overwhelmed advancers 457 to 259, with 896 counters unchanged, 598 untraded and 24 others were suspended.

Turnover stood at 1.461 billion shares worth RM 930.49 million.   

Among actives, Luster Industries, Tiger Synergy and Nextnation all added one sen each to 10 sen, 26 sen and 10 sen, respectively.

As for heavyweights, Maybank dropped two sen to RM9.89, CIMB declined five sen to RM7.55 and Axiata was flat at RM6.84. — Bernama