KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 16 — Bursa Malaysia remained in negative mood at midday, as investors stayed on the sidelines, awaiting Malaysia’s second quarter full results and the first half gross domestic product announcement by Bank Negara Malaysia.
At lunch break, the benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) slid 5.98 points to 1,594.31. The index opened 2.23 points lower at 1,598.06.
On the broader market, losers surpassed gainers 335 to 257, while 357 counters were unchanged, 981 untraded and 14 others suspended.
Turnover amounted to 962.70 million shares worth RM595.18 million.
Analysts said the market would remain quiet until evening as investors process data obtained from BNM on the GDP result.
“Positive growth, arising from the GDP, could be the push needed by the market as the global economy has shown signs of a slowdown. Malaysia would be seen as a resilient market amid the economic downtrend and heightened global tensions,” she added.
She also said the lower-liners are seeing positive signs as most medium sized caps were gaining since morning, compared to the heavyweight counters.
The index for medium sized caps has bucked the trend by gaining 23.89 points, while shariah medium sized caps were 18.82 points higher at 13,728.37.
As for the performance of heavyweights, Kuala Lumpur Kepong lost 18 sen to RM23.72, Digi and Dialoge both gained one sen to RM5.00 and RM3.53 respectively, Maxis dropped three sen to RM5.43 and Hup Seng was down five sen to RM9.60.
For the most active stocks, Datasonic and its warrant both improved half-a-sen to 91 sen and 43.5 sen, and KNM, Eduspec and Bumi Armada gained half-a-sen to 38 sen, six sen and 22 sen respectively.
The FBM Emas Shariah Index depreciated 40.69 points to 11,808.14, the FBM Emas Index slid 39.28 points to 11,278.20, the FBMT 100 Index declined 40.25 points to 11,116.17, the FBM Ace contracted 41.69 points to 4,549.92, while the FBM 70 was 44.73 points lower at 14,056.50.
Sector-wise, the Financial Services Index weakened 58.89 points to 15,497.48, the Industrial Products and Services Index was marginally lower by 0.23 point to 149.40 and the Plantation Index weakened 70.54 points to 6,732.89. — Bernama
