KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 12 — Shares on Bursa Malaysia continued the downtrend at mid-morning today, dampened by weak investor appetite amid profit-taking activities, dealers said.

As at 11.03am, the benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) stood at 1,835.9, down 6.92 points from its settlement yesterday. The index fluctuated between 1,833.12 and 1,840.54 in the trading session.

Losses in key heavyweights also took the shine off the FBM KLCI, even as the market faced jitters from the possibility that the US Federal Reserve could pull back on its stimulus programme soon, a dealer said.

Among the heavyweights, Maybank eased 4 sen to RM10.04, TNB lost 14 sen to RM11.16, CIMB slipped 2 sen to RM7.69, Sime Darby fell 6 sen to RM9.60 and Axiata Group shed 1 sen to RM6.73.

On the scoreboard, most indices were in netive territory, with the Plantation Index bucking the trend in improving 0.65 of a point to 8,994.21.

The Finance Index fell 78.57 points to 16,837.79 and the Industrial Index declined 19.06 points to 3,096.36. The FBM Emas Index lost 47.97 points to 12,682.23, the FBMT100 Index dipped 48.24 points to 12,414.66, the FBM 70 gave up 60.71 points to 14,125.57, and the FBM Ace slipped 4.81 points to 5,620.64.

Losers outnumbered gainers 323 to 189, with 255 counters unchanged, 795 untraded and 19 others suspended.

In thin trade, turnover amounted to 307.977 million shares worth RM410.973 million.

Among actives, Land & General inched up 0.5 sen to 44.5 while Solution Engineering was flat at 33 sen. — Bernama