Bursa Malaysia ends lower on continued selling in selected heavyweights

KUALA LUMPUR, March 5 — Continued selling in most heavyweight  counters dragged Bursa Malaysia to close lower today, dealers said.

At 5pm, the benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) ended 19.45 points weaker at 1,806.09, after fluctuating between 1,805.80 and 1,819.67 throughout the day.

CIMB and SapuraKencana were the top two losers, declining 21 sen and 19 sen each to RM5.72 and RM2.45, respectively, bringing down the benchmark index by a total of 5.08 points.

Regionally, a dealer said that Asian stock markets traded mostly lower, affected by China’s announcement to cut its economic growth target.

On the broader market, losers outpaced gainers 556 to 288 with 292 counters
unchanged, 635 counters untraded and 18 others suspended.

Total volume rose to 2.14 billion shares worth RM2.38 billion, from 2.12 billion shares worth RM2.16 billion transacted yesterday.

The FBM Emas Index dropped 109.49 points to 12,429.39, the FBMT100 Index fell 114.66 points to 12,113.45 while the FBM Ace lost 41 points to 6,582.28.

The FBM Emas Shariah Index was 66.22 points lower at 13,035.18 while the FBM 70 dipped 63.21 points to 13,399.28.

On a sectoral basis, the Industrial Index slipped 10.82 points to 3,317.16, the Plantation Index declined 53.98 points to 7,934.46 while the Finance Index lost 175.02 points to 15,928.43.

Of actively-traded stocks, Ingenuity Consolidated added one sen to eight sen, Perisai Petroleum rose 1.5 sen to 63 sen, KN Group gained 3.5 sen to 73 sen, while Wintoni earned half-a-sen to 26 sen.

Among heavyweights, Maybank fell seven sen to RM9.21, TNB shed eight sen to RM14.64, Public Bank lost 20 sen to RM18.62 while Axiata was flat at RM 7.13.

The Main Market volume rose to 1.35 billion units worth RM2.26 billion, from 1.15 billion units worth RM2.01 billion registered yesterday.

Turnover on the ACE Market contracted to 670.82 million shares valued at RM99.73 million, from 878.93 million shares worth RM132.06 million recorded yesterday.

Warrants rose to 114.64 million units worth RM22.79 million, from 85.64 million units worth RM16.08 million transacted yesterday. Consumer products accounted for 113.75 million shares traded on the Main Market, industrial products (230.40 million), construction (50.07 million), trade and services (651.96 million), technology (78.46 million), infrastructure (14.38 million), SPAC (12.72 million), finance (95.79 million), hotels (4.49 million), properties (74.59 million), plantations (18.65 million), mining (7,000), REITs (6.29 million) and closed/fund (9,600). — Bernama