KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 11 — Bursa Malaysia ended the day lower across-the-board on weak buying support in view of sluggish regional markets and bearish oil prices.

At 5pm, the benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) settled at 1,637.59, down 20.02 points, compared with Friday’s close of 1,657.61 points.

The index fluctuated between 1,637.59 and 1,657.89 throughout the day in cautious trading with losers outpacing gainers 657 to 300 while 303 counters were unchanged, 462 untraded and 12 others were suspended.

Total volume eased to 1.91 billion shares, worth RM1.95 billion, from Friday’s 2.07 billion shares valued at RM1.93 billion.

A dealer said jitters surrounding regional bourses, including Bursa Malaysia, were due to the bearish performance of major Chinese indices which closed at their lowest levels since September.

The Hang Seng index declined 2.8 per cent to 19,888.50 while the China Enterprises Index was 3.9 per cent weaker at 8,505.16 points.

“Adding more nervousness to the market were declining oil prices. Brent crude oil fell over 3.0 per cent to US$32.51 per barrel and US West Texas Intermediate crude oil eased over 2.5 per cent to US$32.28,” he added.

Of heavyweights, Maybank shed 20 sen to RM8.32 while TNB and Public Bank were down 12 sen each to RM13 and RM18.16, respectively.

On actives, Tiger Synergy was flat at 9.0 sen, AWC inched up 2.5 sen to 45 sen and DPS Resources lost half-a-sen to 13 sen.

Leading the top losers list were Petronas Gas (-54 sen to RM21.28) and Malaysian Pacific Industries (-37 sen to RM9.99) while British American Tobacco (+80 sen to RM54.90) and Petron (+67 sen to RM6.85) topped the gainers list.

On the scoreboard, the FBM Emas Index fell 128.63 points to 11,494.65, the FBMT100 Index lost 128.46 points to 11,161.51 and the FBM Emas Shariah Index was 148.96 points lower at 12,475.42.

The FBM 70 declined 121.09 points to 13,008.53 and the FBM Ace contracted 92.38 points to 6,230.99.

Sector-wise, the Industrial Index decreased 31.69 points to 3,171.54, the Finance Index contracted 147.93 points to 13,770.66 and the Plantation Index fell 61.31 points to 7,564.88.

Main Market volume declined to 1.27 billion units, worth RM1.8 billion, from 1.33 billion units, worth RM1.75 billion, on Friday.

Turnover on the ACE Market fell to 265.3 million shares, valued at RM67.34 million, from Friday’s 334.77 million shares valued at RM92.09 million.

Warrants slipped to 367.82 million shares worth RM73.07 million from 410.45 million shares valued at RM85.57 million traded previously.

Consumer products accounted for 197.46 million shares traded on the Main Market, industrial products (266.32 million), construction (64.49 million), trade and services (431.06 million), technology (33.53 million), infrastructure (9.14 million), SPAC (20.71 million), finance (43.88 million), hotels (1.42 million), properties (182.07 million), plantations (17.09 million), mining (54,000), REITs (5.59 million) and closed/fund (96,600). — Bernama