KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 16 — Shares on Bursa Malaysia ended the morning session lower today following profit-taking activities, dealers said.

At 12.30pm, the FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) was 9.35 points or 0.51 per cent lower at 1,814.68, after hovering between 1,811.18 to 1,831.33.

At the end of the morning session, turnover stood at 972.93 million shares worth RM956.87 million.

Losers edged gainers by 475 to 209, with 302 counters unchanged, 567 untraded and 18 others suspended.

Regionally, Japan’s Nikkei 225 rose to 15,776.72 and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng improved to 22,862.66, but Singapore’s Straits Times Index declined 3,138.59.   

On the scoreboard, the Finance Index lost 22.09 points to 16,683.65, the Plantation Index slipped 39.50 points to 8,596.6, and the Industrial Index shed 10.19 points to 3,109.29.

The FBM Emas Index lost 60.38 points to 12,566.93, with the FBMT100 Index losing 60.04 points to 12,270.2, but the FBM Ace was 34.77 points higher at 6,046.92.

The FBM 70 eased 14.76 points to 6,010.88.

Among actives, Sona Petroleum dropped half-a-sen to 27.5 sen, Sumatec Resources Bhd also shed half-a-sen for 31 sen, and Iris Corporation declined one sen to 43.5 sen.

As for the heavyweights, Maybank lost one sen to RM9.80, Tenaga declined eight sen to RM11.48, and Axiata slipped 8.0 sen to RM6.65. — Bernama