KUALA LUMPUR, July 26 ― Bursa Malaysia ended its morning session trading in negative territory, tracking the lower US earnings reports and the European Central Bank’s decision to hold its interest rate.

 At 12.30pm, the FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) reduced 6.90 points to 1649.68 after having closed at 1,656.58 yesterday.

The benchmark index, which opened 2.84 points lower at 1,653.74, moved between 1,649.22 and 1,653.77 throughout the morning session.

Losers outnumbered gainers 436 to 253, while 370 counters were unchanged, 869 untraded and 25 others suspended.

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Turnover amounted to 1.38 billion shares worth RM905.96 million.

A dealer said the local bourse and its regional peers would continue to trade on a downtrend influenced by the uncertainties ahead of the meeting between the US and China representatives.

“The American trade negotiators will soon head to China to try gapping their differences namely over trade and technology and geopolitical,” he said.

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He added that the market today also reacted negatively after the ECB decided to maintain its interest rate.

Investors were expecting the ECB to reduce its interest rate due to the economic slowdown, he said.

Of the heavyweights, Maybank fell one sen to RM8.74, Public Bank declined 16 sen to RM22.52, Tenaga slipped four sen to RM13.70 and PetChem was five sen weaker at RM7.60.

For the most actives, Only World rose eight sen to 24.5 sen, Genting Malaysia jumped 19 sen to RM3.86 and Netx was flat at 1.5 sen.

The FBM Emas Index reduced 48.36 points to 11,714.96, the FBMT 100 Index slipped 48.21 points to 11,537.69 and the FBM Emas Shariah Index gave up 62.99 points to 12,075.05.

The FBM Ace declined 38.83 points to 4,728.28 and the FBM 70 lost 61.16 points to 14,735.47.

Sector-wise, the Financial Services Index depreciated 76.10 points to 16,355.59, the Plantation Index gave up 79.33 points to 6,767.27 and the Industrial Products & Services Index edged down 0.65 point to 155.56. ― Bernama