KUALA LUMPUR, June 20 ― Stocks on Bursa Malaysia ended the morning session today on a weaker note on profit taking, amid a mixed performance on regional bourses.

At the midday break, the benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) stood at 1,880.33, down 1.15 points, after fluctuating in a tight range of between 1,878.68 and 1,887.68.

A dealer said that Asian shares were mixed after the US Federal Reserve indicated interest rates would stay low into the next year.

He said the oil prices retreated after surging on the Iraq crisis yesterday, while eyes were now turn to the release next week of provisional manufacturing data from China, Europe and the US.

On the scoreboard, the Finance Index fell 23.31 points to 17,241.91, the Plantation Index slipped 32.31 points to 9,195.34 and the Industrial Index eased 5.71 points to 3,212.47.

The FBM Emas Index shed 4.28 points at 13,025.71, the FBMT100 Index dipped 3.58 points to 12,657.12, but the FBM 70 rose 12.71 points to 14,173.82, and the FBM Ace improved 23.71 points to 6,817.9.

Decliners led advancers 374 to 330, while 304 counters were unchanged, 621 untraded and 17 others suspended.

Turnover stood at 757.32 million shares worth RM674.72 million.              

Among actives, 1Utopia was flat at six sen, Malaysia Airlines eased one sen to 22.5 sen, while Infortech advanced one sen to 39 sen and EA Holdings went up 1.5 sen to 13.5 sen.

Of the heavyweights, Maybank shed one sen to RM9.80, Public Bank fell 12 sen to RM20.24, but TNB rose four sen to RM11.86 and CIMB added two sen to RM7.32. ― Bernama