KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 2 — Bursa Malaysia closed lower for the second consecutive day today, weighed by losses in the finance and banking stocks, led by Maybank.

At 5 pm, the benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) finished 19.02 points or 1.18 per cent weaker at 1,590.19, after moving between 1,583.63 and 1,602.6 throughout the day.

With the composite index dragged down by 5.771 points, Maybank fell 35 sen to RM8.42 with 33.73 million shares changed hands.

As for other banking stocks, Public Bank lost 26 sen to RM17.74, AMMB erased 24 sen to RM4.44, CIMB eased seven sen to RM4.77, while RHB Capital fell 12 sen to RM6.25.

A dealer said the market sentiment was depressed by unfavorable reports released by research firms that indicated a slower loan growth pace for the second half of this year.

The slower pace was due to normalisation after few years of rapid loan growth, surpassing the country's economic growth, he said.

He added that the sentiment was also clouded by the rise in the interbank rate which was also an indicator of tighter liquidity in the banking system.

On the scoreboard, the FBM Emas Index contracted 94.28 points to 10,864.32, the FBMT100 Index dropped 100.34 points to 10,618.22, the FBM Emas Syariah trimmed 42.57 points to 11,381.66, and the FBM 70 eased 10.06 points to 11,576.19.

However, the FBM Ace rose 28.86 points to 4,966.21.

On a sectoral basis, the Finance Index gave up 275.02 points to wind up at 13,988.37, the Industrial Index slid 4.56 points to 3,059.26 but the Plantation Index perked 55.34 points to 6,834.4.

Gainers led losers by 379 to 347, while 311 counters remained unchanged, 740 untraded and 10 others suspended.

Total volume fell to 1.89 billion units worth RM2.13 billion from 2.06 billion units valued at RM2.6 billion transacted yesterday

Among actives, AirAsia gained 5.5 sen to 95.5 sen, but KNM inched down half-a-sen to 46 sen and SapuraKencana eased 10 sen to RM1.69.

Of the heavyweights, TNB was six sen lower at RM11.12, Axiata fell 20 sen to RM5.91 and Maxis shed one sen to RM6.55.

Main Market volume reduced to 852.17 million units worth RM1.77 billion from 1.09 billion units valued at RM2.3 billion yesterday.

Turnover on the ACE Market narrowed to 141.63 million shares worth RM27.78 million from 216.24 million shares worth RM33.46 million previously.

Warrants increased to 893.05 million units worth RM327.98 million from yesterday's 751.55 million units worth RM268.53 million.

Consumer products accounted for 51.05 million shares traded on the Main Market, industrial products (144.7 million), construction (32.01 million), trade and services (395.13 million), technology (35.82 million), infrastructure (22.23 million), SPAC (7.26 million), finance (77.7 million), hotels (1.37 million), properties (61.44 million), plantations (16.95 million), mining (nil), REITs (6.44 million), and closed/fund (67,100). — Bernama

. — Bernama