KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 12 — Plantation counters on Bursa Malaysia remained attractive for investors despite the downtrend seen in the benchmark index FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI), dealers said.

The FBM KLCI declined by 5.63 points to end the morning session at 1,837.19, after fluctuating between 1,833.12 and 1,840.54, dragged down by losses mostly in key heavyweights.

Among the plantation stocks, KLK, which also topped the gainers’ list, rose 32 sen to RM24.60 while FGV perked 8 sen to RM4.58.

A dealer said December usually witnessed a rally in plantation stocks because of the wet weather and the current inventory level, which was above expectations.

Another dealer said most of the investors stayed on the sidelines owing to jitters from the possibility that the US Federal Reserve could pull back on its stimulus programme soon.

On the scoreboard, the Plantation Index rose 26.57 points to 9,020.13 but the Finance Index fell 66.77 points to 16,849.58 and the Industrial Index declined 20.17 points to 3,095.25.

The FBM Emas Index erased 39.51 points to 12,690.7, the FBMT100 Index lost 39.94 points to 12,422.96, the FBM Ace trimmed 14.49 points to 5,610.96, while the FBM 70 gave up 52.95 points to 14,133.33.

Losers led gainers 389 to 214, with 309 counters unchanged, 650 untraded and 19 others suspended.

In soft trading, turnover totalled 504.036 million shares worth RM670.791 million.

Among actives, Land & General inched up 0.5 sen to 44.5 sen, Tiger Synergy was flat at 22.5 sen.

Of the heavyweights, Maybank eased 4 sen to RM10.04, TNB fell 14 sen to RM11.16, Sime Darby lost 10 sen to RM9.56, while CIMB and Axiata Group shed 1 sen each to RM7.70 and RM6.73 respectively. — Bernama