KUALA LUMPUR, July 26 — Bursa Malaysia extended last Friday’s losses to end at its intraday low today as stocks across the board succumbed to selling pressure.
At 5pm, the benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) fell 10.91 points or 0.72 per cent to close at 1,512.53 compared with Friday’s close of 1,523.44.
The index opened 1.03 points higher at 1,524.47 and moved between 1,512.53 and 1,525.73 throughout the session.
On the broader market, losers thumped gainers 702 to 343, while 428 counters were unchanged, 764 untraded, and 21 others suspended.
Turnover fell to 4.82 billion units valued at RM2.80 billion from Friday’s 5.41 billion units valued at RM3.21 billion.
A dealer said the local equities market opened higher but retreated thereafter to stay lower throughout the trading session.
“The local bourse traded on consolidation mode as investors turned cautious, digesting issues raised during the five-day special Parliamentary sitting this week,” he told Bernama.
He said the market performance was also in line with regional peers, which struggled to stay positive, despite Wall Street closing at a new high on Friday, lifted by a spectacular United States’ (US) earnings season.
Regionally, the Singapore’s Straits Times Index fell 0.57 per cent to 3,138.99, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index declined 4.13 per cent to 26,192.32, and South Korea’s Kospi slipped 0.91 per cent to 3,224.95, while Japan’s Nikkei 225 rose 1.04 per cent to 27,833.29.
Bank Islam Malaysia Bhd economist Adam Mohamed Rahim said most regional indices were lower triggered by a sell-off in China’s equity market following the move by its government to bar for-profit tutoring in core subjects taught at school which hit the education-linked counters badly.
“On the domestic front, the drop in the number of daily Covid-19 cases to 14,516 cases today compared to yesterday’s record high of 17,045, was seen to be insufficient to spur optimism in the market,” he noted.
He said rubber glove counters such as Hartalega was the biggest decliner on the FBM KLCI index, losing 3.9 per cent for the day despite cases remaining high above the 10,000 mark.
Of the heavyweights, Maybank and TNB shed three sen each to RM8.00 and RM9.70 respectively, Public Bank eased two sen to RM4.00, Petronas Chemicals fell six sen to RM7.99, and IHH Healthcare dipped four sen to RM5.77.
Among the actives, SMTrack added one sen to nine sen, PUC gained two sen to 17.5 sen, MAG Holdings edged up half-a-sen to 20 sen, Wegmans warrant slid 2.5 sen to 4.5 sen, while Kanger International was flat at seven sen.
On the index board, the FBM Emas Index decreased 83.82 points to 11,094.31, the FBMT 100 Index went down 79.35 points to 10,793.27, and the FBM Emas Shariah Index was 108.30 points lower at 12,216.86.
The FBM ACE declined 99.73 points to 7,323.50 and FBM 70 slipped 113.37 points to 14,607.94.
Sector-wise, the Financial Services Index dropped 91.67 points to 14,753.24, the Plantation Index shed 54.26 points to 6,189.28, while the Industrial Products and Services Index eased 0.86 of-a-point to 189.01.
Main Market volume narrowed to 2.66 billion shares valued at RM2.10 billion from Friday’s 3.19 billion shares valued at RM2.48 billion previously.
Warrants turnover widened to 437.31 million units worth RM44.91million from 291.02 million units worth RM31.28 million last Friday.
Volume on the ACE Market reduced to 1.72 billion shares valued at RM647.83 million from 1.93 billion shares valued at RM691.79 million previously.
Consumer products and services accounted for 672.21 million shares traded on the Main Market, industrial products and services (820.28 million), construction (138.27 million), technology (316.85 million), SPAC (nil), financial services (64.04 million), property (177.47 million), plantation (31.56 million), REITs (4.98 million), closed/fund (18,600), energy (235.15 million), healthcare (82.29 million), telecommunications and media (29.29 million), transportation and logistics (83.40 million), and utilities (7.87 million). — Bernama
