KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 21 — Bursa Malaysia remained in the red territory at lunch break as investors stayed on the sidelines waiting for further direction to boost the local market.

At 11.12am, the FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) was 3.09 points lower at 1,599.66 compared with yesterday’s close of 1,602.75.

The index opened 1.51 points lower at 1,601.24.

On the broader market, losers surpassed gainers 367 to 269, while 348 counters remained unchanged, 969 untraded and 14 others suspended.

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Turnover stood at 1.8 billion units worth RM681.93 million.

The market according to an analyst has been muted in the morning session with selected selling in financial heavyweights.

“Financial stock usually the ones that follow global indices directly as it serves as an indicator on the health of the economy. We can see that the Dow Jones was down 177.35 points overnight, triggering downtrend in the local bourse as well,” she said.

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The heavyweight financial counters, CIMB Bank shed seven sen to RM5.11, Public Bank was down six sen to RM20.74 while Maybank, RHB and AMMB were flat at RM8.55, RM5.52 and RM3.92 respectively.

As for actives, Meridian shed two sen to 9.5 sen, Lambo Group, Impiana and Icon all declined half-a-sen to 5.5 sen, 2.5 sen and 5 sen respectively.

The FBM Emas Shariah Index depreciated 25.36 points to 11,853.42, the FBM Emas Index contracted 21.06 points to 11,328.61, the FBMT 100 Index declined 22.59 points to 11,162.18, the FBM Ace lost 6.66 points to 4,601.52, while the FBM 70 was 32.62 points lower at 14,150.62.

Sector-wise, the Financial Services Index dropped 32.16 points to 15,573.46, the Industrial Products and Services Index was marginally lower by 0.60 point at 149.41 and the Plantation Index declined 10.73 points to 6,750.64. — Bernama