KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 14 — Bursa Malaysia closed slightly lower despite selling pressure on finance stocks, with losses countered by gains in selected heavyweight counters, dealers said.

At 5pm, the benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) stood at 1,742.01, down 6.89 points, after hovering between 1,736.77 and 1,744.71 throughout the day.

Maybank and CIMB were among the top losers as the market closed today, declining 23 sen and 17 sen each to RM8.39 and RM5.75, respectively.

Market talk on the possible scrap of the mega-bank merger of CIMB, RHB Cap and MBSB seemed to affect investors’ buying pattern today, a dealer said.

However, in an earlier report, CIMB Chairman Datuk Seri Nazir Razak denied reports that its proposed merger with RHB Capital and MBSB has been called off, saying the negotiations were still ongoing and a formal announcement on the decision would be made very soon.

The Finance Index ended the trading 163.15 points weaker at 15,224.34.

On other scoreboards, the FBM Emas Index declined 20.68 points to 11,991.06, the FBMT100 Index slipped 26.38 points to 11,715.59, and the FBM Emas Shariah Index advanced 31.76 points to 12,539.82.

The FBM 70 gained 47.56 points to 13,082.62 and the FBM Ace soared 35.26 points to 6,008.12.

Sector-wise, the Industrial Index added 14.06 points to 3,203.22 while the Plantation Index earned 26.24 points to 7,839.49.

On the broader market, gainers outpaced losers by 443 to 349 with 310 counters unchanged, 637 counters untraded and eight others suspended.

Total volume shed to 1.77 billion shares worth RM2.49 billion from 1.90 billion shares worth RM2.11 billion on Tuesday.

Among actively traded stocks, Minetech was flat at 10.5 sen, Systech improved 1.5 sen to 28 sen, IFCA MSC went up 2.5 sen to 93 sen, while JAG earned one sen to 18 sen.

Of the heavyweights, TNB increased 28 sen to RM14.50, Public Bank gained six sen to RM17.52, Axiata added three sen to RM7.01 while Maxis was flat at RM6.88.

Main Market volume declined to 1.21 billion shares worth RM2.28 billion from Tuesday’s 1.23 billion shares worth RM1.91 billion.

Turnover on the ACE Market narrowed to 435.24 million shares valued at RM150.89 million from 483.02 million shares valued at RM141.41 million previously.

Warrants declined to 153.79 million units worth RM59.29 million from 189.44 million units worth RM55.99 million yesterday.

Consumer products accounted for 94.06 million shares traded on the Main Market, industrial products (201.53 million), construction (54.74 million), trade and services (435.4 million), technology (93.5 million), infrastructure (20.32 million), SPAC (12.33 million), finance (119.67 million), hotels (2.76 million), properties (148.47 million), plantations (14.23 million), mining (47,200), REITs (13.12 million) and closed/fund (52,000). — Bernama