KUALA LUMPUR, July 18 — Share prices on Bursa Malaysia were lower at mid-afternoon today on continued selling activities in heavyweights and selected penny stocks.

At 3 pm, the benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) was 8.72 points lower at 1,874.42, after opening 8.53 points easier at 1,874.2.

Losers thumped gainers by 580 to 206 with 284 counters unchanged, 569 untraded and 37 others suspended.

Turnover stood at 1.636 billion shares worth RM1.173 billion.

The easier local market was also in tandem with regional markets as investor sentiment was affected by the crash of the Malaysia Airline’s plane in the Ukraine-Russia border, said a dealer.

Among the active counters, MAS led the list.

MAS fell by two sen to 20.5 sen, followed by Sumated, which edged up half-a-sen to 42.5 sen and Talam Transform shed half-a-sen to 11 sen.

Of the heavyweights, Maybank, TNB and Axiata declined four sen each toRM9.96, RM12.26 and RM6.90 respectively.

Public Bank dropped 10 sen to RM20.04 and Sime Darby eased a sen to RM9.64.

On the scoreboard, the Finance Index slipped 93.34 points to 17,465.68, Plantation Index slid 26.2 points to 9,019.67 and the Industrial Index fell 26.05 points to 3,239.46.

The FBM Emas Index declined 71.8 points to 13,066.75, FBMT100 Index shed 69.28 points to 12,661.5, the FBM Ace slipped 41.27 points to 6,837.36 and the FBM 70 lost 118.42 points to 14,348.57. — Bernama