KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 22 — Bursa Malaysia was broadly lower at mid-morning in tandem with global equities, as sentiment was spooked by the new Covid-19 virus strain that caused another lockdown in the United Kingdom.

At 11.05am, the benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) fell 17.06 points or 1.04 per cent to 1,630.83 after moving between 1,627.22 and 1,647.36 during the session.

In a relatively weak market, decliners far outnumbered advancers at 1,012 to 180, while 337 counters were unchanged, 608 untraded and 17 others suspended.

Volume stood at 4.3 billion units worth RM2.07 billion.

Malacca Securities Sdn Bhd said in a note that the negative sentiment from the new virus strain might spill over to stocks on the local front.

The research firm expected trading interest to revolve around construction and building materials as well as property sector amid the potential Kuala Lumpur-Singapore High-Speed Rail news flow coupled with the rising building material prices.

"Also, we expect the vaccine distribution candidate may surface as the health minister stated that (the government) will try to get all the vaccine supplies by the first quarter 2021,” it said.

Among the heavyweights, Maybank fell 11 sen to RM8.37, Public Bank lost 30 sen to RM20.36, Tenaga and IHH Healthcare erased 10 sen each to RM10.58 and RM12.52 respectively, and Petronas Chemicals declined nine sen to RM7.45.

However, Top Glove and Hartalega rose two sen each to RM6.64 and RM12.52, respectively.

Among the actives, Techna-X trimmed 1.5 sen to 15 sen, Iris added one sen to 40 sen, Bintai increased nine sen to 75.5 sen and Vivocom fell 11 sen to 87 sen, while both Kanger and Borneo Oil were flat at 14 sen and four sen, respectively.

On the index board, the FBM Emas Index was 134.73 points lower at 11,714.09, the FBMT 100 Index fell 134.46 points to 11,479.71, the FBM Emas Shariah Index erased 106.26 points to 13,180.28, the FBM 70 contracted 231.09 points to 14,927.23, and the FBM ACE reduced 110.01 points to 10,368.44.

Meanwhile, the Industrial Products and Services Index shrank 2.21 points to 172.75, the Plantation Index gave up 49.79 points for 7,308.4, while the Financial Services Index dropped 234.73 points to 15,148.85. — Bernama