KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 14 — The FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) ended lower today on selling by institutional funds, amid weakness on oil and gas-related counters, a dealer said.

At 5pm, the benchmark FBM KLCI stood at 1,813.79, down by 2.02 points, after hovering between 1,808.7 and 1,814.57 through the day.

Inter-Pacific Research Sdn Bhd head of research Pong Teng Siew said the stock market performance was “disappointing” this week, extending the declines last week, with institutional funds selling in order to declare dividend by year-end.

“They are taking profit at this time. If they don’t lock in profit, they won’t be able to pay dividend by the end of this year,” he told Bernama.

He said the situation was made worse after oil and gas counters were badly hit as crude oil price tumbled to its lowest in four years.

On other scoreboards, the FBM Emas Index lost 31.47 points to 12,534.9, the FBMT100 Index 23.89 points to 12,201.86, the FBM Ace 107.67 points to 6,489.06, and the FBM 70 66.35 points to 13,638.71. By sectors, the Industrial Index gained 12.4 points to 3,296.99 and the Finance Index 15.541 points to 16,412.72 while the Plantation Index shed 27.399 points to 8,366.28.

Losers led gainers by more than double at 548 to 235, with 315 counters unchanged, 577 counters untraded and 19 others suspended.

Volume fell to 1.64 billion units worth RM1.6 billion from 1.69 billion shares worth RM1.72 billion yesterday.

Of the heavyweights, Maybank lost 5 sen to RM9.56 while Axiata was flat at RM7.05. TNB and Sime Darby added 2 sen each to RM13.52 and RM9.62 respectively and Public Bank gained 6 sen to RM18.20.

Among actives, Efficient E-Solutions lost 2 sen to 34 sen, Jasa Kita and KNM declined 3 sen each to 23 sen and 67.5 sen respectively and IFCA MSC dropped 3.5 sen to 76 sen. Jadi Imaging gained 0.5 sen to 16.5 sen.

Main Market volume fell to 1.15 billion units worth RM1.48 billion from yesterday’s 1.2 billion units worth RM1.6 billion.

Turnover on the ACE Market increased to 447.13 million shares valued at RM115.67 million from 434.96 million shares valued at RM113.02 million. Warrants declined to 41.34 million units worth RM4.56 million from 51.52 million units worth RM6.45 million previously.

Consumer products accounted for 72.42 million shares traded on the Main Market, industrial products 345.7 million, construction 36.4 million, trade and services 475.95 million, technology 48.3 million, infrastructure 26.47 million, SPAC 41.53 million, finance 31.86 million, hotels 387,000, properties 61.95 million, plantations 8.28 million, mining 432,500, REITs 5.25 million and closed/fund 48,000.

Bursa Malaysia in a statement said it has changed Spritzer Bhd stock and its warrant’s short name to SPRITZER and SPRITZER-WA from SPRITZR and SPRITZR-WA respectively. — Bernama