KUALA LUMPUR, May 23 — Share prices on Bursa Malaysia ended lower today on profit-taking ahead of the weekend.

The benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) finished at 1,869.22, down 5.9 points, after fluctuating between 1,866.34 and 1,878.54 throughout the day.

A dealer said the market performance in the past few days indicated that the index would possibly trade lower with a sideways bias in the next few days.

“The analysis of overall daily market action revealed that buying power was weaker than selling pressure,” he added.

Of the heavyweights, Maybank fell 5.0 sen to RM9.90, CIMB slipped 7.0 sen to RM7.31 while Axiata and Sime Darby eased 1.0 sen each to RM6.92 and RM9.63 respectively.

Among actives, Sumatec added 1.5 sen to 28 sen, MAS was unchanged at 17 sen and ETI Tech slipped half-a-sen to 10 sen.

Decliners outpaced advancers 492 to 296, with 324 counters unchanged, 514 untraded and 27 others suspended.

Volume decreased to 1.57 billion shares worth RM1.88 billion from 1.8 billion shares worth RM2.23 billion recorded yesterday.

On the scoreboard, the Finance Index fell 43.11 points to 17,078.19, the Plantation Index slipped 99.14 points to 9,215.24 and the Industrial Index eased 0.18 point to 3,196.99.

The FBM Emas Index was 34.1 points lower at 12,923.95, the FBMT100 Index depreciated 33.76 points to 12,574.26, the FBM 70 shed 14.45 points to 14,049.04 and the Ace Index lost 26.44 points to 6,598.67.

Main Market volume declined to 1.25 billion units worth RM1.81 billion, from 1.47 billion units worth RM2.16 billion registered yesterday.

Turnover on the ACE market narrowed to 203.6 million shares valued at RM56.71 million, from yesterday’s 245.37 million shares valued at RM66.01 million.

Warrants increased to 67.19 million units worth RM12.81 million, from 45.97 million units worth RM5.3 million previously.

Consumer products accounted for 75.64 million shares traded on the Main Market, industrial products 173.13 million, construction 62.73 million, trade and services 534.47 million, technology 111.62 million, infrastructure 17.76 million, SPAC 89.95 million, finance 43.05 million, hotels 467,000, properties 120.76 million, plantations 12.17 million, mining 305,900, REITs 8.35 million and closed/fund 26,800. — Bernama