KUALA LUMPUR, June 27 — Stocks on Bursa Malaysia fell sharply lower today as traders booked profits ahead of the weekend amid the absence of major funds, dealers said.

At 5 pm, the benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) ended 9.04 points higher at 1,880.93, after hovering between 1,880.25 and 1,889.34.

Inter-Pacific Research Sdn Bhd head of research Pong Teng Siew said the market gave up its gains in the last few days with investors viewing them as unsustainable amid the absence of major funds and unit trust funds.

"Major funds and unit trust funds have closed their books for the quarter. Window dressing this quarter ended a little earlier than the same period last year and there is no more window dressing expected until the end of the month," he told Bernama.

Meanwhile, he said, foreign investors have remained on the sidelines for the last few days.

"Foreign investors were net sellers for the last five days," he said.   

On the scoreboard, the Plantation Index declined 28.79 points to 9,239.49, the Finance Index fell 89.561 points to 17,141.58 and the Industrial Index depreciated 8.94 points to 3,247.51.

 The FBM Emas Index contracted 42.81 points to 13,040.53, the FBMT100 Index went down 46.76 points to 12,668.25, the Ace Index decreased 22.5 points to 6,695.77 but the FBM 70 was 2.149 points firmer at 14,212.88.

Market breadth was negative as decliners outpaced advancers 394 to 372, with 333 counters unchanged, 532 untraded and 39 others suspended.

Total volume rose to 1.64 billion units worth RM1.8 billion from yesterday's 1.42 billion shares worth RM1.95 billion.

Among actives, 1Utopia eased half a sen to six sen.

MAS earned half a sen to 21.5 sen, Sumatec Resources gained 1.5 sen to 31.5 sen, and SKP Resources and Priceworth International added one sen each to 53.5 sen and 23 sen respectively.

Of the heavyweights, Maybank and Axiata lost three sen each to RM9.80 and RM6.95, Public Bank shed 30 sen to RM19.60, TNB declined eight sen to RM12.14 and CIMB eased two sen to RM7.30.

Main Market volume rose to 1.21 billion units worth RM1.7 billion from yesterday's 1.1 billion units worth RM1.89 billion.

Turnover on the ACE market expanded to 343.74 million shares valued at RM61.72 million from 259.93 million shares valued at RM49.54 million previously.

Warrants decreased to 20.54 million units worth RM2.67 million from 28.69 million units worth RM3.9 million yesterday.

Consumer products accounted for 40.81 million shares traded on the Main Market, industrial products 375.3 million, construction 46.89 million, trade and services 460.02 million, technology 33.7 million, infrastructure 17.46 million, SPAC 29.76 million, finance 77.86 million, hotels 7.6 million, properties 89.39 million, plantations 25.78 million, mining 33,000, REITs 7.25 million and closed/fund 15,000. — Bernama