KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 15 — Bursa Malaysia ended the morning session lower dragged down by selling activities in heavyweights led by Tenaga Nasional amid weak regional peers.

At lunch break, the FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) eased 4.01 points to 1,576.59 from Tuesday’s close of 1,580.6.

The index opened 0.66 of-a-point weaker at 1,579.94 and moved between 1,573.92 and 1,582.63 throughout the morning session.

Losses in Tenaga Nasional dragged the composite index down by 1.402 points after falling 14 sen to RM12.76 with 1.2 million shares changing hands.

The overall market breadth on Bursa was negative with losers leading gainers 422 to 268, while 385 counters remained unchanged,1,967 untraded and 18 others suspended.

Turnover amounted to 1.44 billion shares worth RM642.72 million.

A dealer said most of the Asian bourses were on the downtrend ahead of the signing of the phase one US-China trade deal.

"Sentiment in the market tumbled after US Treasury Secretary commented that Washington will not remove tariffs on Chinese imports until after the 2020 presidential election.

"This has push investors away awaiting fresh lead from the signing of the trade pact,” he said.

Of heavyweights, Maybank eased four sen to RM8.61, but Public Bank rose 22 sen to RM19.36, while both Petronas Chemicals and CIMB were flat at RM7.09 and RM5.18 respectively.

Among actives, Vortex was flat at 15 sen, TH Heavy bagged 1.5 sen to 11.5 sen, while London Biscuits slipped one sen to 2.5 sen.

On the index board, the FBM Emas Index went down 30.24 points to 11,252.96 and the FBM Emas Shariah Index fell 57.18 points to 11,868.98.

The FBMT 100 Index contracted 31.22 points to 11,041.21, the FBM 70 lost 52.71 points to 14,161.64 while the FBM Ace decreased 6.44 points to 5,544.01.

Sector-wise, the Industrial Products and Services Index inched up 0.29 of-a-point to 152.77, the Financial Services Index bagged 7.66 points to 15,386.65 and the Plantation Index erased 53.96 points to 7,548.36. — Bernama