KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 7 ― Bursa Malaysia was easier at mid-morning, reversing its earlier gains as the market sentiment turned weak.
At 11am, the benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) shed 0.69 of-a-point to 1,532.67 from yesterday's close of 1,532.67.
On the scoreboard, losers surpassed gainers 352 to 332, while 347 counters were unchanged, 1,242 untraded and 21 others suspended.
Turnover stood at 1.54 billion units worth RM602.87 million.
Rakuten Trade Sdn Bhd vice-president of Equity Research, Thong Pak Leng said the FBM KLCI closed lower on rather heavy selling yesterday.
“As the market undertone continues to be weak, we reckon the index would face continuous road bumps ahead, thus we expect it to hover within the 1,525-1,540 range today on heightened market volatility,” he told Bernama.
Meanwhile, protests against rising fuel prices in Kazakhstan pushed oil benchmark Brent crude to close higher at US$82 (RM344.84) per barrel.
Back home, heavyweights Public Bank and CIMB both gained two sen to RM4.14 and RM5.45, respectively, Petronas Chemicals added one sen to RM8.74, while Maybank slipped one sen to RM8.29 and IHH Healthcare eased two sen to RM6.74.
As for the actives, both DGB and AT Systematization were flat at 3.0 sen, Sersol bagged 3.5 sen to 48 sen and SMTrack picked up one sen to 29 sen.
On the index board, the FBM Emas Index was 4.0 points easier at 11,154.9, FBM Emas Shariah Index decreased 12.15 points to 11,983.75, FBMT 100 Index shed 6.41 points to 10,840.02, and FBM 70 contracted 14.89 points to 14,287.8.
However, the FBM ACE rose 43.78 points to 6,625.76.
Sector-wise, the Plantation Index trimmed 4.37 points to 6,598.6, the Industrial Products and Services Index slipped 0.04 of-a-point to 201.09, while the Financial Services Index advanced 11.51 points to 15,632.71. ― Bernama
