KUALA LUMPUR, July 31 — Share prices on Bursa Malaysia ended the morning session in negative territory, with losses led by index-linked banking stocks and selected heavyweights, dealers said.
At mid-day break, the FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) lost 17.88 points to 1,777.20.
The composite index moved between 1,773.29 and 1,791.71 throughout the morning session.
Maybank lost 30 sen to RM10.26 while CIMB eased 13 sen to RM8.02, with both counters weighing down the key barometer by 6.5 points.
On the scoreboard, the Finance index was down 304.41 points to 16,831.02, the Plantation index slipped 52.34 points to 8,326.46 and the Industrial Index fell 18.82 points to 3,027.96.
The FBM Emas Index eased 138.07 points to 12,365.64, the FBMT 100 Index lost 133.02 points to 12,117.23, the FBM ACE Index slipped 49.63 points to 4,997.62 and the FBM 70 Index went down 201.69 points to 14,198.99.
MIDF Amanah Investment Bank Bhd Senior Vice-President/Head of Research Zulkifli Hamzah said the sell-off was expected as foreign investors were cautious over the outcome of the US Federal Reserve meeting.
The investors also are anticipating key US economic indicator figures such as the Purchasing Managers Index in the remainder of the week, he told Bernama.
In terms of market breadth, the gainer-to-loser ratio was 85 to 679, with 231 counters unchanged, 604 untraded and 43 others suspended.
Market volume traded was 1.026 billion shares valued at RM1.340 billion.
Among actives, Malaysia Airlines was flat at 31 sen while UEM Sunrise fell 10 sen to RM2.76, Dialog Group eased 13 sen to RM2.87 and TH Heavy Engineering inched down 1.5 sen to 83.5 sen.
Of heavyweights, Sime Darby was up by one sen to RM9.50, Axiata was flat at RM6.83 while Petronas Chemicals and Maxis both shed four sen to RM6.61 and RM7.05 respectively. — Bernama
