KUALA LUMPUR, March 25 — Bursa Malaysia ended lower today amid mixed performance on regional bourses as market sentiment was partly dampened by a slump in Brent crude oil price following the blockage in the Suez Canal after a ship ran aground.

At 5pm, the benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) fell 4.67 points to 1,597.73 points compared with 1,602.40 at the close yesterday.

The index opened 5.46 points better at 1,607.86 and moved between 1,594.33 and 1,608.05 throughout the day.

Bank Islam Malaysia Bhd economist Adam Mohamed Rahim said the incident in the Suez Canal had raised concerns in the market, particularly on oil tankers transporting oil from the west to the east and vice versa as well as container ships movement.

On the broader market, losers led gainers 580 to 429, while 469 counters were unchanged, 754 untraded and 22 others suspended.

Total volume fell to 6.01 billion shares valued at RM3.04 billion from 6.95 billion shares valued at RM3.56 billion yesterday.

Adam said on the home front, Sime Darby Plantation led the decliners among the FBM KLCI constituents with a 2.3 per cent drop.

"On a sectoral basis, the Bursa Malaysia technology index was the biggest laggard, losing 1.2 per cent on Thursday as a sell-off in Chinese technology shares on concerns they will be delisted from US bourses rattled investors,” he told Bernama.

As for the top losers among the heavyweights, Maybank and PBBank lost one sen each at RM8.23 and RM4.17, respectively, PChem declined two sen to RM8.05, and Tenaga erased six sen to RM10.76.

As for the active counters, BJCorp added two sen to 31 sen, DNex shed two sen to 96 sen while its warrant was flat at 34 sen, Fintec was flat at seven sen and Saudee fell 10 sen to 50 sen.

On the index board, the FBM Emas Index lost 17.44 points to 11,736.35, the FBMT 100 fell 19.83 points to 11,409.61, and the FBM Emas Shariah declined 21.74 points to 13,041.60, and the FBM ACE erased 76.02 points to 10,362.84.

However, the FBM 70 gained 25.51 points to 15,472.87.

Sector-wise, the Plantation Index slipped 80.70 points to 7,082.35 and the Financial Services Index declined 18.77 points to 15,247.99 but the Industrial Products and Services Index edged up 0.35 of-a-point to 191.47.

Main Market volume fell to 3.83 billion shares worth RM2.48 billion from 4.05 billion shares worth RM2.74 billion yesterday.

Warrants turnover slipped to 248.34 million units valued at RM43.18 million from 275.66 million units worth RM44.29 million.

Volume on the ACE Market decreased to 1.93 billion shares worth RM516.15 million compared with yesterday’s 2.62 billion shares worth RM774.44 million.

Consumer products and services accounted for 716.62 million shares traded on the Main Market, industrial products and services (1.13 billion), construction (167.54 million), technology (513.29 million), SPAC (nil), financial services (61.37 million), property (416.48 million), plantations (26.70 million), REITs (6.68 million), closed/fund (12,000), energy (479.64 million), healthcare (41.27 million), telecommunications and media (48.80 million), transportation and logistics (197.82 million), and utilities (20.61 million). — Bernama