KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 9 — Bursa Malaysia closed in the red today, a week after the 2019 Budget announcement, weighed by both local and external factors, namely the Petronas rating downgrade as well as weaker performance of most global equity markets, said M&A Securities Sdn Bhd Chief Dealing Officer R. Sundararajah.
At 5pm, the benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) was 13.33 points lower at 1,708.09, from yesterday’s close of 1,721.42.
The index opened 2.14 points lower at 1,719.28 and moved between 1,705.10 and 1,719.73 throughout the day.
Market breadth was negative, with losers outpacing gainers 567 to 244, while 339 counters were unchanged, 704 untraded and 22 others suspended.
Volume shrank to 1.65 billion units worth RM1.80 billion from 2.28 billion units worth RM2.29 billion recorded yesterday.
All Bursa Malaysia indices were in the red throughout the session.
Sundararajah explained that foreign funds did not take the news on Petronas positively.
In the 2019 Budget tabled last week, Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng said Petronas was expected to pay an additional RM30 billion in special dividend, making the total dividend commitment to RM54 billion.
This has resulted in rating agency Moody’s Investors Service to downgrade the outlook on Petronas’ prospect assessment from stable to negative.
“We have seen that for the week, there were nett selling by foreign funds and ever since the tabling of 2019 Budget, the market has been reacting negatively because it was not very clear,” he said, adding the investors opined that there was no real catalyst for the local equity market.
As for external factors, a potential hike in US interest rate has also dampened market sentiment.
Of the heavyweights, MISC was down 52 sen to RM6.45, IHH erased 14 sen to RM4.85, CIMB eased 12 sen to RM5.57 while Maybank fell three sen to RM9.29.
Petronas-related counters, PetDag lost RM1 to RM27.0, PChem declined 11 sen to RM9.59 but PetGas added two sen to RM18.76.
As for active stocks, SapNRG added 1.5 sen to 37.5 sen, Seacera advanced half-a-sen to 26 sen, Bornoil was flat at five sen while MYEG shed two sen to RM1.26.
The FBM Emas Index declined 94.56 points to 11,846.26, the FBMT 100 Index reduced 92.55 points to 11,688.13, and the FBM Emas Shariah Index went down 112.71 points to 12,011.69.
The FBM Ace Index decreased 80.18 points to 4,932.60 and the FBM70 dipped 114.92 points to 13,845.99.
Sector-wise, the Plantation Index slid 6.5 points to 7,362.73, the Industrial Products and Services Index inched down 1.90 points to 173.30 and the Financial Services Index fell 97.93 points to 17,199.11.
Main Market volume declined to 1.1 billion units worth RM1.66 billion from yesterday’s 1.53 billion units worth RM2.12 billion.
Warrants turnover slipped to 316.76 million units worth RM81.94 million from 367.57 million units worth RM87 million recorded yesterday.
Volume on the ACE Market was lower at 236.51 million shares valued at RM62.22 million from 377.16 million shares worth RM82.12 million.
Consumer products and services accounted for 137.37 million shares traded on the Main Market, industrial products and services (331.91 million), construction (39.24 million), technology (152.88 million), SPAC (472,500), financial services (41.22 million), property (79.63 million), plantations (17.58 million), REITs (4.83 million), closed/fund (nil), energy (185.55 million), healthcare (25.1 million), telecommunication and media (43.43 million), transportation and logistics (15.0 million), and utilities (25.65 million). — Bernama
