Bursa Malaysia ends lower on weaker buying sentiment

KUALA LUMPUR: Bursa Malaysia ended lower today on weaker buying sentiment and dragged down by trade and services as well as consumer-linked stocks.
At 5pm, the benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) was 29.98 points lower at 1,639.47, after moving between 1,638.83 and 1,661.95 throughout the day.
Losers led gainers by 526 to 274, while 291 counters were unchanged, 734 untraded and 12 others suspended.
Volume eased to 1.59 billion shares valued at RM1.86 billion from 2.03 billion units valued at RM2.63 billion recorded last Friday.
Among top losers were British American Tobacco, which fell 80 sen to RM61.50, MISC Bhd fell 34 sen to RM8.31, Genting Malaysia lost 33 sen to RM4.04 and Malaysia Airports declined 31 sen to RM5.38.
A dealer said the local market was affected by bearish regional stock performance after the Federal Reserve (Fed) decided to keep interest rates at record lows.
"The Fed's move to maintain its interest rates sparked fresh concerns on the global economy's health, subsequently causing traders to be cautious," he added.
The FBM 70 was 106.94 points lower at 12,293.54, FBM Ace lost 26.85 points to 5,443.1, FBM Emas Index fell 175.07 points to 11,302.19, FBMT100 Index declined 177.04 points to 11,021.82 and the FBM Emas Shariah Index contracted 108.47 points to 12,940.8.
The Finance Index went down 303.22 points to 14,253.49, Plantation Index slid 104 points to 7,004.62 and the Industrial Index fell 44.33 points to 3,079.71.
Among heavyweights, Maybank lost 29 sen to RM8.41, Public Bank fell 12 sen to RM18.40, Tenaga edged down 4.0 sen to RM12.18 and Axiata eased 10 sen to RM6.14.
On actives, AirAsia added 7.0 sen to RM1.38 and AirAsia X perked one sen to 22 sen. Main Market volume reduced to 936.4 million units worth RM1.72 billion from 1.32 billion units worth RM2.44 billion recorded last Friday.
Turnover on the ACE Market fell to 219.2 million units valued at RM60.89 million from 330.88 million units valued at RM104.86 million previously.
Warrants went up to 442.83 million units worth RM77.84 million from 376.81 million units worth RM81.44 million last Friday.
Consumer products accounted for 48.72 million shares traded on the Main Market, industrial products (138.66 million), construction (44.65 million), trade and services (458.18 million), technology (37.05 million), infrastructure (18.93 million), SPAC (9.1 million), finance (66.25 million), hotel (793,300), properties (83.89 million), plantations (19.94 million), mining (NIL), REITs (10.06 million) and closed/fund (102,300).
The physical price of gold as at 5pm stood at RM151.00 per gramme, up RM2.76 from RM148.24 at 5pm last Friday. – Bernama