KUALA LUMPUR, July 30 — Share prices on Bursa Malaysia continued to trade lower at mid-day, as investors were cautious over the outcome of the global central banks meetings, dealers said.
At 12.30pm, the FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) was 3.82 points lower at 1,794.96. The composite index moved between 1,792.77 and 1,800.20 throughout the morning session.
Market breadth was negative, with 418 losers and 198 gainers, while 311 counters were unchanged, 671 untraded and 43 others suspended.
Turnover stood at 1.196 billion shares worth RM872.248 million.
Hong Leong Investment Bank said the KLCI is likely to trade cautiously with a focus on the US Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) and European Central Bank meetings as well as key US economic indicators such as the second quarter gross domestic product announcement.
The market is looking on the FOMC meeting on July 30 and 31 in order to get more clues about the state of the economy and the future of the central bank’s huge stimulus programme.
On the scoreboard, the Industrial Index was up by 9.56 points to 3,059.62, the Finance Index dropped 118.85 points to 17,139.75, while the Plantation Index fell 5.10 points to 8,381.53.
The FBM Emas Index was down 21.88 points to 12,506.11, the FBMT 100 shed 18.96 points to 12,253.10, the FBM 70 Index added 7.05 points to 14,419 and the FBM ACE Index eased 33.55 points to 5,043.68.
Among actives, Malaysia Airlines and Asia Media Group each added half-a-sen to 31.5 sen and 15.5 sen respectively, China Stationery was flat at 27.5 sen and Flonic Hi-Tec shed half-a-sen to 12.5 sen.
Newly-listed Sona Petroleum was traded two sen lower at 40.5 sen with 278.476 million lots exchanging hands.
Meanwhile, its warrants appreciated 15 sen to 22.5 sen with a volume of 278.476 million.
As for the heavyweights, CIMB lost 16 sen to RM8.15, Maybank eased 10 sen to RM10.60, TNB was seven points down to RM9.02 and Hong Leong Financial Group slid 14 sen to RM14.30. – Bernama
