KUALA LUMPUR, July 29 — Bursa Malaysia closed broadly lower today, dampened by weak regional market sentiment amid the lacklustre Bank of Japan’s (BoJ) fresh stimulus measures, weak oil prices and mixed corporate earnings reports.

At 5pm, the FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) fell 5.24 points to settle at its intraday low of 1,653.26 after hitting a high of 1,662.06 earlier.

A dealer said regional equity markets reacted to the announcement of BoJ’s stimulus measures, aimed at increasing the purchases of exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in its easing package and kept interest rates unchanged.

The central bank also retained its plan to expand the monetary base by an annual ¥80 trillion (RM3.1 trillion), sending the country’s government bonds to its lowest level since 2013.

"Market players had hoped that today’s policy announcement would see more stimulus, but it did not live up to the expectations,” the dealer said.

As for oil, the commodity’s price fell to its three-month low and averaged at US$39.59 a barrel, down from US$55.84 a year earlier, due to mounting concern over rising global supply.

There were 445 losers and 324 gainers, with 362 counters unchanged, 572 untraded and 45 others suspended.

Volume fell to 1.9 billion units worth RM2.03 billion from 2.22 billion units valued at RM1.85 billion recorded yesterday.

On the scoreboard, the FBM Emas Index fell 33.87 points to 11,585.11, the FBMT100 Index lost 32.31 points to 11,283.78, and the FBM 70 declined 25.42 points to 13,206.72.

The FBM Emas Shariah Index dipped 37.75 points to 12,198.77 and the FBM Ace was down 32.14 points to 5,420.2.

Sector-wise, the Finance Index declined 30.97 points to 14,186.45, the Industrial Index eased 15.85 points to 3,095.15, and the Plantation Index fell 24.73 points to 7,562.24.

Of the heavyweights, Maybank slipped two sen to RM8.02, Public Bank lost six sen to RM19.50, while both IHH Healthcare and Petronas Chemicals shed five sen each to RM6.54 and RM6.55 respectively.

TNB, which posted bullish third-quarter results with a pre-tax profit of RM2.53 billion, rose six sen to close the week at RM14.38.

Among actives, TH Heavy gained two sen to 22 sen, but Sanichi eased 1.5 sen to 8.5 sen and MBSB shed 2.5 sen to 60.9 sen.

Main Market turnover fell to 1.29 billion shares worth RM1.93 billion from 1.78 billion shares valued at RM1.77 billion recorded yesterday.

The ACE Market volume increased to 463.16 million units worth RM65.12 million from yesterday’s 312.27 million units valued at RM52.54 million.

Warrants rose to 144.06 million shares worth RM32.36 million from 128.54 million shares valued at RM26.47 million previously.

Consumer products accounted for 63.12 million shares traded on the Main Market, industrial products (168.72 million), construction (52.5 million), trade and services (720.37 million), technology (57.89 million), infrastructure (14.15 million), SPAC (9.24 million), finance (105.74 million), hotels (117,000), properties (65.21 million), plantations (18.19 million), mining (26,000), REITs (15.11 million) and closed/fund (2,900). — Bernama