KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 4 — Bursa Malaysia ended lower today on major profit taking, dealers said.

A dealer told Bernama the selling occurred throughout the trading session, prompted by a weaker ringgit and discouraging China stock market performance which led most regional markets to be on negative territory.

The ringgit was quoted at 3.8520/8550 against the US dollar at the close today.

At 5pm, the FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) fell 20.46 points, or 1.17 per cent, to 1,723.73 after fluctuating between 1,722.91 and 1,730.81 throughout the day.

On the regional front, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng declined 5.3 points, or 0.02 per cent, to 24,406.12, Japan’s Nikkei 225 was down 27.75 points (0.14 per cent) to 20,520.36 and Singapore’s Straits Times was 7.75 points (0.24 per cent) lower at 3,185.04.

Meanwhile, on the local scoreboard, the FBM Emas Index declined 124.31 points to 11,864.57, FBMT100 Index fell 121.07 points to 11,551.83 and the FBM Syariah contracted 197.62 points to 12,341.73.

The FBM 70 went down 74.05 points to 12,750.02 and the FBM Ace eased 41.22 points to 6,225.51.

On a sectoral basis, the Finance Index lost 38.12 points to 15,425.88, the Plantation Index went down 49.17 points to 7,357.26 while the Industrial Index rose 16.84 points to 3,275.05.

Losers outnumbered gainers by 549 to 261, with 300 counters unchanged, 689 untraded and 14 others suspended.

Total volume rose to 1.34 billion units valued at RM1.53 billion from 1.32 billion units valued at RM1.25 billion yesterday.  Among the losers, UMW Holdings declined 64 sen to RM10.08, Maxis fell 61 sen to RM6.59, while British American Tobacco and VS Industry both slipped 60 sen each to RM66.70 and RM5.77, respectively.

Among actives, The Media Shoppe was flat at 6.5 sen, Pesona Metro fell one sen to 55.5 sen, AirAsia X trimmed half-a-sen to 20.5 sen and Konsortium Transnasional declined 3.5 sen to 27 sen.

Meanwhile, iDimension perked half-a-sen to 14.5 sen.

Of the heavyweights, Maybank fell one sen to RM9.17, TNB declined 30 sen to RM11.94 and Axiata eased 41 sen to RM6.44.

Public Bank was up 10 sen to RM19.16 and Sime Darby improved one sen to RM8.79.

Main Market volume rose to 896.38 million shares worth RM1.41 billion against yesterday’s 785.08 million shares worth RM1.12 billion.

Turnover on the ACE Market decreased to 242.79 million units valued at RM65.24 million from 316.77 million units valued at RM73.03 million previously.

Warrants trimmed to 193.95 million shares worth RM50.33 million from 212.27 million shares worth RM53.05 million yesterday. 

Consumer products accounted for 99.13 million shares traded on the Main Market, industrial products (165.98 million), construction (78.26 million), trade and services (335.53 million), technology (75.08 million), infrastructure (14.19 million), SPAC (10.92 million), finance (33.59 million), hotels (456,800), properties (59.33 million), plantations (9.08 million), mining (nil), REITs (14.81 million), and closed/fund (19,000). — Bernama