KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 4 — Shares on Bursa Malaysia finished in negative territory today on worries over external developments.

At 5 pm, the benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) finished 13.59 points lower at 1,589.16, after moving between 1,587.61 and 1,602.32 throughout the day.

A dealer said the downtrend, which was in sync with the weaker peer bourses, was pressured by the fall on Wall Street as investors awaited the release of the highly-anticipated US jobs data later today.

“Everybody is waiting for the US non-farm payrolls data as they represent the last major data point before the Federal Reserve meets on September.

“It will determine the strength of its economy and direction for the interest rate,” he told Bernama.

The US government expected some 223,000 jobs generated in August.

On the scoreboard, the FBM Emas Index fell 68.71 points to 10,882.04, FBMT100 Index contracted 70.72 points to 10,625.79 and the FBM Emas Syariah down 24.69 points to 11,430.11.

The FBM 70 eased 2.72 points to 11,638.13 and the FBM Ace declined 33.03 points to 5,129.2.

On a sectoral basis, the Finance Index dropped 167.03 points to 13,924.63, Industrial Index fell 13.51 points to 3,065.86 and the Plantation Index declined 25.96 points to 6,813.29.

Market breadth was negative with losers thumping gainers by 452 to 324, while 297 counters remained unchanged, 722 untraded and 10 others suspended.

Total volume rose to 1.85 billion units worth RM1.58 billion from 1.71 billion units worth RM1.53 billion on Thursday.

Among actives, iDimension, Privasia and Frontken fell half-a-sen each to 12.5 sen, 23 sen and 15.5 sen respectively. IFCA was flat at 71 sen.

Of the heavyweights, Maybank lost 10 sen to RM8.37, Public Bank eased six sen to RM17.68, TNB fell 12 sen to RM11.08 and Axiata slipped one sen to RM5.91.

Maxis, however, added one sen to RM6.59.

Main Market volume expanded to 960.96 million units worth RM1.32 billion from 851.14 million units worth RM1.32 billion yesterday.

Turnover on the ACE Market narrowed to 434.73 million shares valued at RM124.66 million from 515.7 million shares valued at RM122.04 million previously.

Warrants widened to 452.89 million units worth RM132.08 million from yesterday’s 339.36 million units worth RM88.58 million.

Consumer products accounted for 59.11 million shares traded on the Main Market, industrial products (180.66 million), construction (50.52 million), trade and services (448.02 million), technology (25.37 million), infrastructure (12.72 million), SPAC (10.39 million), finance (40.45 million), hotels (598,500), properties (114.97 million), plantations (10.04 million), mining (4,900), REITs (8.09 million), and closed/fund (23,500). — Bernama