KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 24 — Bursa Malaysia continued its bearish tone at mid-morning, tracking the performance of regional stocks markets as investors in holiday mood stayed put.

At 11.01am, the benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) erased 1.11 points to 1,669.77 from Friday’s close of 1,670.28. The index opened 0.29 point lower at 1,669.99.

Regionally, Singapore’s Strait Times fell 0.19 per cent to 3,040.24, Japan’s Nikkei erased 1.11 per cent to 20,166.19 and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng fell 0.76 per cent to 25,558.94 points.

Top losers Nestle erased RM1.10 to RM146.50, DLady fell 60 sen to RM60.0, HLFG went down 18 sen to RM18.68 and KLK shed 14 sen to RM24.06.

Among heavyweights, Maybank declined two sen to RM9.29, Tenaga lost 10 sen to RM13.38, PBBank and PChem were both flat at RM24.68 and RM9.20 respectively but CIMB gained two sen to RM5.67.

Of the actives, SapNRG added half-a-sen to 30.5 sen, MyEG rose 3.5 sen to 86 sen, Velesto climbed one sen to 18.5 sen while Hubline was flat at four sen.

Overall market breadth was negative, with losers leading gainers 270 to 234, while 269 counters were unchanged, 1,115 untraded and 25 others suspended.

Volume stood at 559.56 million units valued at RM274.01 million.

The FBM Emas Index decreased 6.35 points to 11,364.76, the FBMT 100 Index lost 1.77 points to 11,287.24 but the FBM 70 was 22.08 points better at 12,848.47.

The FBM Emas Shariah Index edged down 17.29 points to 11,301.38 and the FBM Ace Index was 8.01 points easier at 4,250.60.

Sector-wise, the Financial Services Index gave up 24.01 points for 17,119.53, the Industrial Products and Services Index lost 0.43 point to 165.04 and the Plantation Index narrowed 79.09 points to 6,731.19. — Bernama