KUALA LUMPUR, July 30 — Share prices on Bursa Malaysia remained easier at mid-afternoon due to lack of buying interest, with losses mostly seen in finance and banking stocks, led by CIMB and Maybank, dealers said.

At 3.06pm, the FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) slipped 3.72 points to 1,795.06.

CIMB lost 15 sen to RM8.16 while Maybank shed 12 sen to RM10.58, with both counters dragging down the composite index by 3.946 points.

Losers outpaced gainers by 440 to 196, with 332 counters unchanged, 630 untraded and 43 others were suspended.

A total of 1.435 billion shares worth RM1.150 billion were traded.

JF Apex Securities Bhd Head of Research Lee Chung Cheng said investors were reluctant to take positions ahead of the outcome from the US Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) two-day meeting beginning today.

“Investors are cautious. The local bourse is also tracking overnight losses in the Wall Street,” he told Bernama.     

Wall Street posted a weak overnight performance with key US stock indices down between 0.2 per cent and 0.4 per cent at the closing bell mainly dragged by a drop in pending home sales.

The market is looking at the FOMC meeting today and tomorrow 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 Finance Index dwindled 118.01 points to 17,140.59, the Plantation index eased 6.56 points to 8,380.07 but the Industrial index added 4.33 points to 3,054.39.  

The FBM Emas Index lost 23.37 points to 12,504.62, FBMT100 Index fell 19.59 points to 12,252.47, the FBM Ace Index shed 25.51 points to 5,051.72 but the FBM 70 Index gained 0.77 of a point to 14,412.72.    

Among actives, both Luster Industries and Malaysian Airlines were flat at 10 sen and 31 sen, respectively, while China Stationery, Flonic Hi-Tec and TH Heavy Engineering each shed half-a-sen to 27 sen, 12.5 sen and 85 sen, respectively.

Newly listed Sona Petroleum was traded two sen lower at 40.5 sen, with 269.970 million lots changing hands.         

Meanwhile, its warrants added 16 sen to 23.5 sen, with a volume of 519.185 million.    

Heavyweights, Axiata gained two sen to RM6.84, Petronas Chemicals rose three sen to RM6.63 while Sime Darby and Maxis were flat at RM9.50 and RM7.09, respectively.

TNB slipped seven sen to RM9.02. – Bernama