KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 8 — Share prices on Bursa Malaysia closed on an easier note today on lack of buying interests in blue-chips and selected heavyweights, dealers said.

At 5pm, the benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) stood at 1,740.84, down 0.49 point.
Market breadth was negative with gainers outpacing losers by 540 to 258, while 293 counters were unchanged, 626 untraded and 12 others suspended.  

Total volume slipped to 1.25 billion units worth RM1.52 billion from 1.40 billion units worth RM1.81 billion last Friday.

Among the heavyweights that eased today were Maybank, which fell two sen to RM8.87 and Axiata, which declined by 14 sen to RM6.65.

TNB rose 26 sen to RM13.86 and Public Bank added two sen to RM18.18.

A dealer said the local equity market would slowly pick up in line with the regional peers.

“The market is expected to rebound, boosted by the euro’s runaway liquidity and it will help support the Asian equity market valuations, thus providing the region with cheap finance to underpin their buoyant economies,” he said.

Regionally, Japan’s Nikkei 225 index gained 15.19 points to 17,935.64 and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng improved 45.03 points to 24,047.67.

Indonesia’s Jakarta Composite was 43.98 points lower at 5,144.01.

The FBM Emas Index fell 0.45 point to 11,993.80, FBMT100 Index eased 0.44 point to 11,713.61, FBM 70 dropped 0.26 point to 13,102.64, FBM Ace declined 1.68 points to 5,897.07 and the FBM Emas Syariah Index was 0.57 point lower at 12,402.23 73.63402.23 73.63.    

On a sectoral basis, the Finance Index eased 0.32 point to 15,520.69, Industrial Index decreased 0.64 point to 3,168.44 and the Plantation Index declined 1.25 points to 7,931.30.

Among actives, Bumi Armada gained five sen to RM1.09, SapuraKencana improved one sen to RM2.52 while both Minetech and Nexgram were half-a-sen lower to nine sen and 6.5 sen, respectively.

Main Market volume decreased to 856.93 million units worth RM1.42 billion from 969.03 million units worth RM1.67 billion last Friday.

Turnover on the ACE Market rose to 249.57 million shares valued at RM50.38 million from 230.8 million shares valued at RM58.02 million last week.

Warrants declined to 136.81 million units worth RM52.88 million from 200.76 million units worth RM80.06 million previously.

Consumer products accounted for 45.21 million shares traded on the Main Market, industrial products (144.88 million), construction (31.38 million), trade and services (418.51 million), technology (55.30 million), infrastructure (16.70 million), SPAC (17.24 million), finance (42.56 million), hotels (739,000), properties (70.89 million), plantations (10.30 million), mining (21,000), REITs (3.56 million) and closed/fund (138,000). — Bernama