KUALA LUMPUR, May 16 — Persistent selling of blue chips dragged Bursa Malaysia lower today, influenced by the rebalancing of the MSCI Emerging Markets Index (MSCI), dealers said.

The MSCI, which is an index created by Morgan Stanley Capital International, is designed to measure emerging-market performance globally.

The rebalancing of the index will reduce its weightage on Malaysian stocks, come June 1.

However, a dealer said that this situation would not last long and traders expected local stocks to rebound again.

At close, the benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) moved between 1,611.91 and 1,628.52 throughout the day, before settling 7.05 points weaker at 1,621.21 from Friday’s close of 1,628.26.

Losers led gainers 539 to 250 with 337 counters unchanged, 585 untraded and 13 others were suspended.

Volume decreased to 1.7 billion shares, worth RM1.69 billion from Friday’s 1.82 billion shares worth RM2.80 billion.

“The downtrend on the local bourse was despite gains on some Asian markets, including Japan and Singapore.” said one dealer.

The Nikkei index climbed more than one per cent, buoyed by a weekend media report that Japan was poised to delay any sales tax hike.

“It provides hopes for more government fiscal stimulus, which will also benefit Japanese shares,” he added.

Of heavyweights, Maybank and Public Bank fell four sen each to RM8.45 and RM19, respectively, TNB was flat at RM14 and IHH was three sen lower at RM6.57.

Among actives, LKL, which made its debut on Ace Market today, saw its shares gain eight sen to 28 sen.

The healthcare-related firm’s share opened at a premium of 15 sen over its issue price of 20 sen per share.

Meanwhile, Vivocom INTL fell one sen to 33.5 sen and AirAsia X was 1.5 sen better at 39.5 sen.

The FBM Emas Index was 51.75 points weaker at 11,350.12, the FBMT100 Index eased 50.05 points to 11,040.17 and the FBM Emas Shariah Index slid 56.77 points to 11,849.01.

The FBM 70 was 65.41 points lower at 12,831.03, the FBM Ace gave up 63.40 points to 5,699.44 and the Finance Index lost 80.59 points to 14,224.44.

The Plantation Index dipped 17.85 points to 7,437.61 and the Industrial Index gave up 16.15 points to 3,014.34.

Main Market turnover was lower at 1.02 billion units valued at RM1.55 billion from last Friday’s 1.13 billion units valued at RM2.66 billion.

The ACE Market turnover was higher at 540.48 million units, valued at RM124.58 million, versus 464.94 million units worth RM110.35 million registered on Friday.

Warrants fell to 139.94 million units, valued at RM19.29 million, from 219.67 million units, worth RM27.07 million, traded previously.

Consumer products accounted for 87.03 million shares traded on the Main Market, industrial products (207.49 million), construction (36.14 million), trade and services (436.57 million), technology (34.56 million), infrastructure (5.7 million), SPAC (10.18 million), finance (61.91 million), hotels (629.300 million), properties (113.27 million), plantations (19.86 million), mining (10,000), REITs (4.18 million) and closed/fund (5,900).— Bernama