KUALA LUMPUR, July 12 — Bursa Malaysia gave up early gains to close in the red territory today, triggered by selling in selected heavyweights led by index-linked financial services counters.
At 5pm, the FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) ended 9.81 points easier at 1,669.45 compared with Thursday’s close of 1,679.26.
The benchmark index opened at 1,681.03 and moved between 1,668.99 and 1,682.04 throughout the day.
Phillip Capital Management Asia-Pacific senior vice-president (investment) Datuk Dr Nazri Khan Adam Khan said going forward, he expected the local market to stage a rebound on possible US interest rate cuts by the US Federal Reserve (Fed).
“The focus remained on Fed chairman as he continued his second day testifying in front of Washington lawmakers on Thursday.
“We believe the key takeaway from the testimony by the chairman is his warning to the Congress of uncertainties in the US economy, which in turn inflated investor expectations that the Fed will cut rates later in the month,” he told Bernama.
Meanwhile, the broader market was negative, with decliners leading advancers 453 to 401, while 412 counters were unchanged, 582 untraded and 19 others suspended.
Among heavyweights, Maybank trimmed three sen to RM8.92, Public Bank, Tenaga and PPB Group declined four sen each to RM22.96, RM13.68 and RM18.74, respectively, while Petronas Chemicals rose two sen to RM8.42 and KLK improved eight sen to RM24.26.
Of the actives, KNM increased 1.5 sen to 36.5 sen, Sapura Energy added half-a-sen to 30 sen, Cuscapi was 2.5 sen higher at 21 sen but Excel Force MSC dipped 5.5 sen to 61.5 sen.
The FBM Emas Index slid 48.64 points to 11,844.25 and the FBMT 100 Index decreased 49.89 points to 11,669.51.
The FBM Emas Shariah Index was 37.85 points weaker at 12,241.92, the FBM Ace slipped 16.92 points to 4,650.13 while the FBM 70 added 12.27 points to 14,877.57.
Sector-wise, the Financial Services Index fell 121.49 points to 16,642.19, the Plantation Index shed 28.4 points to 6,911.28 and the Industrial Products and Services Index eased 0.12 of-a-point to 161.32.
Turnover was lower at 2.93 billion units worth RM2.28 billion compared with 3.18 billion units worth RM2.21 billion on Thursday.
Main Market volume eased to 2.11 billion shares worth RM2.08 billion from 2.40 billion shares worth RM2.01 billion yesterday.
Warrants turnover decreased to 405.07 million units valued at RM88.7 million against 416.52 million units valued at RM90.52 million previously.
Volume on the ACE Market expanded to 413.78 million shares worth RM105.6 million from 355.22 million shares worth RM105.27 million yesterday.
Consumer products and services accounted for 348.88 million shares traded on the Main Market, industrial products and services (171.81 million), construction (178.95 million), technology (490.63 million), SPAC (nil), financial services (76.58 million), property (107.85 million), plantation (10.40 million), REITs (16.45 million), closed/fund (3,000), energy (582.19 million), healthcare (23.50 million), telecommunications and media (54.03 million), transportation and logistics (24.14 million) and utilities (30.56 million). — Bernama
