KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 26 — Bursa Malaysia kicked off trading in the early session lower, led by losses in selected finance-linked counters.

At 9am, the benchmark index stood at 1,840.01 points, down 3.1 points.

Hong Leong Financial Group slipped 28 sen to RM17.42, Maybank depreciated 7.0 sen to RM9.81, CIMB lost 3.0 sen to RM6.97 and Public Bank eased 2.0 sen to RM6.97.

Among actives, Asia Bioenergy rose 1.0 sen to 18.5 sen while Sumatec Resources erased 1.0 sen to 42 sen.

Turnover was at 380.48 million shares valued at RM161.6 million.

Market breadth was negative with losers outpacing losers by 355 to 109, while 218 counters traded unchanged and 20 others were suspended.

On the scoreboard, the Plantation Index declined 42.89 points to 8,371.630, the Industrial Index was 19.97 points lower at 3,181.65 and the Finance Index lost 100.24 points to 17,143.42.

The FBM Emas Index edged down 69.06 points to 12,848.320, the FBM Emas Shariah Index shed 73.88 points to 13,113.6, the FBMT100 Index gave up 69.33 points to 12,425.74, the FBM 70 lost 69.96 points to 14,262.470 and the FBM Ace erased 55.4 points to 7,282.750. — Bernama