KUALA LUMPUR, March 7 — Shares on Bursa Malaysia ended lower today on profit-taking activities while international investors shifted their focus to regional stocks, a dealer said.

The benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) shed 6.43 points to at 1,832.26, after moving between 1,831.37 and 1,836.46 points throughout the day.

Inter-Pacific Securities Sdn Bhd Head of Research Pong Teng Siew said the decline was partly due to profit taking activities as fund investors took advantage to book profits after the recent decline.

“They took the opportunity to sell when the market is up,” he told Bernama.

Pong said foreign funds continued to be net sellers as their focus shifted to regional stocks while local traders slowed down their purchases.

On the scoreboard, the Finance Index rose 27.629 points to 16,548.3, the Plantation Index climbed 36.01 points to 8,972.6 but the Industrial Index contracted 9.37 points to 3,156.39.

The FBM Emas Index lost 15.529 points to 12,708.98, the FBMT100 Index erased 18.971 points to 12,378.6 while FBM 70 jumped 73.601 points to 14,037.70 and the FBM Ace garnered 29.65 points to 6,589.51.

Market breadth was positive with gainers outpacing losers 450 to 357, with 325 counters unchanged, 491 untraded, and 15 others were suspended.

Volume slipped to 1.57 billion shares, worth RM1.81 billion from 2.28 billion shares, worth RM2.38 billion, transacted yesterday.

Among actives, Iris and Tiger Synergy were flat at 59 sen and 15 sen, respectively, while Luster Industries earned half-a-sen to 11 sen and Hiap Huat gained two sen to 19 sen.

Daya Materials slipped half-a-sen to 35 sen.

Of heavyweights, Maybank added four sen to RM9.74 and Sime Darby climbed one sen to RM9.24.

TNB shed 14 sen to RM11.98, CIMB lost two sen to RM7.07 and Axiata fell six sen to RM6.49.

The Main Market volume fell to 1.17 billion units, valued at RM1.68 billion, from 1.46 billion units, worth RM1.95 billion, on Thursday.   

Turnover on the ACE market shrunk to 372.29 million shares, worth RM122.89 million, from yesterday’s 924.85 million shares valued at RM197.93 million.

Warrants expanded to 21.31 million units, worth RM2.81 million, from 17.87 million units, worth RM2.35 million, recorded previously.   

Consumer products accounted for 118.33 million shares traded on the Main Market, industrial products 230.17 million, construction 85.89 million, trade and services 367.36 million, technology 59.53 million, infrastructure 15.95 million, SPAC 26.54 million, finance 39.23 million, hotels 107,000, properties 175.32 million, plantations 48.61 million, mining 19,400, REITs 10.57 million and closed/fund 34,500. — Bernama