KUALA LUMPUR, July 14 ― Bursa Malaysia ended the morning session marginally lower today on lack of buying support amid scattered sell-offs in selected heavyweights, dealers said.

At 12.30pm, the underlying FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) eased 0.9 of-a-point to close at 1,752.88 against Thursday’s close of 1,753.78.

The key index opened 3.04 points stronger at 1,756.82 and fluctuated between 1,751.81 and 1,757.24 throughout the session.

Market breadth was negative as losers outpaced gainers 372 to 307, with 379 counters unchanged, 725 untraded and 21 others suspended.

Turnover stood at 1.32 billion shares worth RM744.61 million.

A dealer told Bernama that investors were cashing on their stocks after the index recorded gains in the previous sessions.

"The FBM KLCI fundamentals are still intact, even though it marginally slid compared to other regional peers which register modest gains,” she said. 

Among heavyweights, Maybank, TNB and Public Bank were flat at RM9.61, RM14.18 and RM20.36, respectively.

Meanwhile, Sime Darby and CIMB were up one sen each at RM9.55 and RM6.35, respectively.

Petronas Chemicals lost nine sen to RM6.86 and Maxis trimmed two sen to RM5.50. 

Of the actives, Vivocom, Systech and Kronologi Asia all gained two sen each to 14 sen, 38.5 sen and 59 sen, respectively.

Sterling and Frontken shed half-a-sen each to 17 sen and 36 sen, respectively.

The FBM Emas Index declined 5.39 points to 12,490.87, the FBM Emas Shariah Index dropped 27.44 points to 12,672.1 and the FBMT100 Index eased 5.04 points to 12,137.2.

The FBM 70 slid 1.59 points to 14,867.67 while the FBM Ace surged 100.07 points to 6,792.27.

Sector-wise, the Finance Index was 6.73 points higher at 16,680.49, the Industrial Index increased 6.46 points to 3,260.32 while the Plantation Index fell 12.85 points to 7,854.02. ― Bernama