KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 17 — Bursa Malaysia ended in negative territory today in line with most regional markets after recent gains, dealers said.

At 5pm, the benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) ended 0.67 point weaker at 1,664.32 compared with Tuesday’s close of 1,664.99.

The index, which hovered between 1,658.27 and 1,669.02 today, had opened 6.24 points lower at 1,658.75 at 9am.

FXTM Research Analyst, Lukman Otunuga, said the volatile swings in the oil market yesterday triggered a wave of risk aversion, which punished risk appetite and consequently left global stocks under pressure.

“Asian equities were mostly down this morning as the sharp decline in oil prices overwhelmed the previous optimism around the Bank of Japan unleashing further stimulus measures to boost growth,” he said in a note today.

Otunuga said the US and European equities may follow the same negative pattern as anxious investors systematically moved away from riskier assets amid the oil production freeze which may have opened the door to lower oil prices.

“With ongoing fears towards slowing global growth still alive and investor confidence towards the global economy quite fragile, the stock markets may be in for more pain in the near term,” he said.

Oil producers, Saudi Arabia and Russia, had called for coordinated efforts to cut output at January levels to counter the glut in the global market.

Market breadth was positive with gainers edging losers by 440 to 402 with 336 counters unchanged, 567 counters untraded and 18 others suspended.

Total volume eased to 1.75 billion shares worth RM1.62 billion from 1.80 billion shares worth RM1.77 billion on Tuesday.

Among heavyweights, Axiata jumped 10 sen to RM5.90, IOI Corp surged 16 sen to RM4.86, TNB gained four sen to RM13.22, PPB Group soared 20 sen to RM15.82 while Petronas Chemicals declined 22 sen to RM6.96.

Of the actives, MMAG Holdings edged up half-a-sen to seven sen, Hubline and Tiger Synergy were flat at one sen and five sen respectively while Vivocom Holdings eased 3.5 sen to 22.5 sen.

On the regional markets, Japan’s Nikkei 225 fell 1.36 per cent to 15,836.36, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng weakened 1.03 per cent to 18,924.57 and Singapore’s Straits Times eased 1.25 per cent to 1,611.65.

The FBM Emas Index rose by 14.70 points to 11,549.12 and the FBM Emas Shariah Index increased by 63.53 points to 12,366.98. The FBM Ace fell by 86.40 points to 5,771.52.

The FBM 70 rose by 78.63 points to 12,795.50 and the FBMT100 Index increased by 13.06 points to 11,254.02.

Sector-wise, the Plantation Index was up by 127.35 points to 7,935.81 and the Industrial Index added 4.98 points to 3,265.31. The Finance Index eased 44.28 points to 13,952.65.

Main Market volume weakened to 1.13 billion units valued at RM1.50 billion from 1.30 billion units valued at RM1.66 billion on Tuesday.

Turnover on the ACE Market surged to 417.13 million shares worth RM83.13 million from 281.09 million shares worth RM73.53 million yesterday.

Warrants went down to 209.0 million units valued at RM39.09 million from 217.81 million units valued at RM39.91 million previously.

Consumer products accounted for 129.58 million shares traded on the Main Market, industrial products (182.97 million), construction (169.598 million), trade and services (379.27 million), technology (34.20 million), infrastructure (10.69 million), SPAC (23.89 million), finance (38.57 million), hotels (584,900), properties (115.72 million), plantations (31.35 million), mining (17,100), REITs (9.04 million) and closed/fund (31,000). — Bernama