KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 18 ― Bursa Malaysia continues to trend lower and in the red at mid-afternoon today on selling pressure in heavyweight counters, led by the financial services sector.

Among the top financial stocks, Public Bank, Maybank and CIMB weighed 14.93 points on the barometer index.

At 3.00pm, the benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) fell 28.14 points to 1,646.21    from Thursday's close of 1,674.35, after opening 2.49 points better at 1,676.84.

On the broader market, losers thumped gainers at 917 to 263, while 429 counters were unchanged, 558 untraded and 47 others suspended.

Volume stood at 5.65 billion units worth RM2.34 billion.

Among the heavyweights, Maybank slipped 27 sen to RM8.43, Public Bank fell 88 sen to RM20.62, Tenaga and Top Glove shed eight sen each to RM10.72 and RM6.62 respectively, and Petronas Chemicals slid seven sen to RM7.49.

Of the actives, VSolar and MNC Wireless edged up half-a-sen each to 4.5 sen and 5.5 sen respectively, Techna-X added one sen to 19.5 sen, Hiap Teck Venture shed 3.5 sen to 40.5 sen while Focus Dynamics warrant was flat at 3.5 sen.

On the index board, the FBM Emas Index was 178.04 points lower at 11,857.67, the FBMT 100 Index slipped 176.01 points to 11,618.19, the FBM Emas Shariah Index declined 125.65 points to 13,292.63, the FBM 70 dropped 142.38 points to 15,225.46, and the FBM ACE lost 65.25 points to 10,538.01.

Meanwhile, the Industrial Products and Services Index eased 1.01 point to 174.73, the Plantation Index reduced 93.28 points to 7,336.10, while the Financial Services Index declined 375.87 points to 15,350.34. ― Bernama