KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 3 — Shares on Bursa Malaysia were lower at mid-day today as profit-taking took charge of blue chip counters, following the strong gains registered last month.

At 12.30 pm, the FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) fell 13.68 points to 1,839.27, after opening 5.85 points lower at 1,847.1.

The benchmark index fluctuated between 1,837.83 and 1,849.23.

Losers led gainers by 340 to 188, with 275 counters unchanged, 747 untraded and 16 others suspended.

Turnover was mild with 591.25 million shares traded worth RM698.13 million.

Kenanga Research said the FBM KLCI was affected by heavy profit-taking activity which emerged after the index posted multiple record highs in the last two weeks.

The research house said the benchmark index is likely to slide on further profit-taking in the coming days to neutralise the overbought situation.

Nevertheless, the long-term uptrend of the index is intact and investors should view the pullback as an opportunity to accumulate quality stocks for medium- to long-term gains, it said in a note.

On the scoreboard, the Finance Index fell 61.029 points to 16,825.71, the Industrial Index dropped 30.15 points to 3,130.64 and the Plantation Index rose 14.75 points to 8,853.11.

The FBM Emas Index fell 82.159 points to 12,691.4, the FBMT100 Index went down 83.64 points to 12,419.2 but the FBM Ace rose 7.16 points to 5,672.99 while the FBM 70 lost 59.86 points to 14,056.38.

Among actives, The Media Shoppe was flat at seven sen, Malaysia Building Society fell one sen to RM2.17 and Malaysia Airlines was flat at 31 sen.

Of the heavyweights, Maybank declined four sen to RM9.89, while Tenaga slipped 18 sen to RM11.00 and CIMB lost four sen to RM7.58. — Bernama