KUALA LUMPUR, April 1 — Bursa Malaysia ended lower today weighed by losses in most heavyweights led by CIMB and Maxis, and in line with regional markets.

The benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) fell 7.03 points to 1,710.55 from yesterday's close of 1,717.58.

The market bellwether, which opened 2.22 points weaker at 1,715.36, moved between 1,706.22 and 1,720.27 throughout the day.

A dealer said regional markets including Malaysia were lower as rating agency, Standard & Poor's revised China's credit rating to negative from stable and weaker business sentiment among Japanese big manufacturers.

The market was also lower ahead of the release of US non-farm payrolls for March later today, added the dealer.

Market breadth was negative with losers outpacing gainers 488 to 301 with 390 counters unchanged, 521 untraded and 24 others suspended.

Volume fell to 1.49 billion shares valued at RM1.73 billion from 1.80 billion shares valued at RM2.54 billion yesterday. 

Among heavyweights, CIMB and Maxis declined eight sen each to RM4.77 and RM6.27 respectively, Sime Darby and Genting Malaysia lost seven sen each to RM7.88 and RM4.47 while YTL Corp shed four sen to RM1.60.

As for losers, Nestle trimmed RM1.90 to RM75, Panasonic Manufacturing Asia slipped 66 sen to RM29.02, United Plantations dropped 46 sen to RM26.50 and Hong Leong Financial Group went down 34 sen to RM15.18. 

Among active stocks, Vivocom International added one sen to 28 sen, EKA Noodles and Nexgram were flat at 13 sen and six sen, respectively, while AirAsia X declined one sen to 28 sen. 

Regionally, Japan's Nikkei 225 tumbled 3.55 per cent to 16,164.16, Hong Kong's Hang Seng shed 1.34 per cent to 20,498.92 and Singapore's Straits Times declined 0.74 per cent to 2,819.98.

The FBM Emas Index fell 46.24 points to 11,874.54, the FBMT100 Index gave up 45.79 points to 11,573.15 and the FBM Emas Shariah Index dropped 34.73 points to 12,463.58.

The FBM 70 eased 45.95 points to 13,181.83 but the FBM Ace added 6.03 points to 5,643.01.

Sector-wise, the Finance Index decreased 84.07 points to 14,682.12, the Industrial Index slid 12.19 points at 3,264.71 and the Plantation Index declined 22.30 points to 7,846.29.

Main Market turnover slipped to 941.92 million units worth RM1.65 billion from yesterday's 1.19 billion units worth RM2.46 billion. 

Turnover on the ACE Market rose to 203.06 million shares valued at RM36.59 million from 192.56 million shares valued at RM33.31 million yesterday.  

Warrants were lower at 341.03 million units worth RM35.72 million from 418.79 million units worth RM44.35 million.

Consumer products accounted for 62.98 million shares traded on the Main Market, industrial products (150.50 million), construction (170.16 million), trade and services (400.30 million), technology (10.89 million), infrastructure (4.55 million), SPAC (22.28 million), finance (40.43 million), hotels (1.09 million), properties (49.99 million), plantations (21.96 million), mining (100), REITs (6.80 million) and closed/fund (nil). — Bernama