KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 12 — Bursa Malaysia ended at its intraday low today, partly on profit-taking amid bearish trend among the major South-east Asian equity markets.

At 5pm, the FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) lost 1.3 points to 1,601.0 after hovering to as high as 1,608.39 earlier.

At opening, the market barometer was 0.91 point better at 1,603.21 compared to Wednesday’s close of 1,602.30.

Inter-Pacific Securities Sdn Bhd head of research Pong Teng Siew said there may be a regional allocation decision made by fund managers to shift away from these markets.

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“Northern Asia’s markets remained buoyant but that of Southeast Asia’s such as Malaysia, Singapore Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines all are down. So, a regional allocation decision could have been made,” he told Bernama.

Most players were also expecting an Overnight Policy Rate (OPR) cut of at least by 25 basis points today, and this could lead to the lack of follow through seen in the afternoon session.

However, Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) decided to maintain the OPR at 3.00 per cent at its Monetary Policy Committee.

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In spite of that, Pong said the move will be good for the ringgit.

“Lack of rate cuts also translated into the ringgit strength. The weaknesses in the ringgit has a big impact on consumer spending in Malaysia.  

“It can be seen in the latest import data which saw a big drop. This shows that the ringgit, which has weakened for months, has an impact on weakening domestic demand and if that continued for too long, it will have an impact on gross domestic products (GDP) growth,” he said.

Topping the heavyweights list, Petronas Chemicals bagged 28 sen to RM7.51, Maybank rose one sen to RM8.90, Digi 11 sen was higher at RM4.72, and Axiata edged up three sen to RM4.23.

Of the actives, Vsolar dropped half-a-sen to 10.5 sen and Bumi Armada slid one sen to 27.5 sen.

Hubline inched up half-a-sen each to 5.5 sen.

The FBM Emas Index declined 8.79 points to 11,283.07, the FBMT100 Index reduced 9.93 points to 11,117.88 and the FBM Emas Shariah Index depreciated 10.74 points to 11,06.41.

The FBM Ace increased 23.06 points to 4,528.79 and the FBM 70 fell 16.14 points to 13,873.12.

Sector-wise, the Financial Services Index down 10.71 points to 15,550.39, the Plantation Index dropped 43.43 points to 6,802.31 and the Industrial Products and Services Index was 1.9 points up at 152.89.

There are 429 gainers, 362 losers on Bursa Malaysia, while 418 counters remained unchanged, 760 untraded and 15 others suspended.

Turnover was lower at 1.89 billion units worth RM1.74 billion from 2.33 billion units worth RM1.78 billion yesterday.

Main Market volume slipped to 1.2 billion shares valued at RM1.61 billion from 1.51 billion shares worth RM1.62 billion yesterday.

Warrants turnover inched down to 473.85 million units worth RM95.1 million compared to 492.50 million units worth RM98.99 million.

Volume on the ACE Market reduced to 214.62 million shares valued at RM38.75 million vis-a-vis 318.31 million shares worth RM61.33 million previously.

Consumer products and services accounted for 206.58 million shares traded on the Main Market, industrial products and services (160.01 million), construction (66.79 million), technology (110.76 million), SPAC (nil), financial services (48.07 million), property (132.14 million), plantations (11.34 million), REITs (20.24 million), closed/fund (15,900), energy (229.35 million), healthcare (25.01 million), telecommunications and media (94.20 million), transportation and logistics (82.58 million), and utilities (17.39 million). — Bernama