KUALA LUMPUR, April 13 — Bursa Malaysia ended the morning trading session broadly lower, but managed to stay above the 1,600-psychological level amidst weak market sentiment.

At lunch break, the FBM KLCI was 7.71 points easier at 1,600.71, compared with Monday’s close of 1,608.42.

The index, which opened 0.29 of-a-point better at 1,608.71, moved between 1,600.02 and 1,608.79 throughout the session.

The market’s sentiment was largely influenced by the extension of the conditional movement control order (CMCO) and recovery movement control order (RMCO) in several states, which affected investors’ risk appetite.

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On the broader market, losers outnumbered gainers 639 versus 295, while 770 counters were unchanged, 454 untraded and 11 others suspended.

Total volume stood at 2.98 billion shares worth RM1.46 billion.

Of the heavyweights, Public Bank slipped one sen to RM4.20, Petronas Chemicals and IHH Healthcare erased eight sen each to RM7.90 and RM5.30, respectively, Tenaga trimmed two sen to RM10.22, while Top Glove fell 12 sen to RM5.13.

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Maybank, however, gained one sen to RM8.33.

Among the active counters, Luster Industries contracted two sen to 22.5 sen, Permaju lost half-a-sen to 18.5 sen, BJCorp decreased two sen to 41 sen, while CNI and Bintai bagged 1.5 sen each to 21 sen and 47.5 sen, respectively.

On the index board, the FBM Emas Index went down 48.39 points to 11,839.94, the FBMT 100 decreased 46.6 points to 11,490.49, the FBM Emas Shariah fell 60.56 points to 13,200.71, the FBM 70 gave up 30.51 points to 15,812.52 and the FBM ACE erased 143.86 points to 9,610.13.

Sector-wise, the Industrial Products and Services Index slipped 0.79 of-a-point to 194.79, the Plantation Index shed 14.08 points to 6,945.94, while the Financial Services Index reduced 28.08 points to 15,174.56. — Bernama