Bursa Malaysia closes lower on selling pressure

KUALA LUMPUR: Bursa Malaysia, which was spooked by a bomb scare today, saw lower trading almost across the board on selling pressure, a dealer said.
At 5pm, the benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) declined 17.09 points to end at 1,652.55, versus Thursday's 1,669.64.
After opening 2.41 points lower at 1,667.23 this morning, the local index moved between 1,652.55 and 1,669.85 throughout the day.
Losers led gainers 587 to 229 while 375 counters were unchanged, 513 untraded and 61 others suspended.
Volume fell to 1.75 billion units worth RM2.19 billion from 1.84 billion units worth RM1.74 billion recorded yesterday.
Earlier, the exchange confirmed that its building management received a bomb threat at 12.01pm today, but trading resumed with the pre-opening at 2pm and trading for the afternoon session started at 2.30pm.
However, a dealer said the weakening trend was due not to the hoax but mainly to the negative market sentiment globally.
"This was seen in the regional markets as well, including Hong Kong's Hang Seng, which plunged 442.32 points to 23,297.15, Japan's Nikkei 225, which erased 243.87 points to 16,449.84 and Singapore's Straits Times, which eased 21.11 points to 2,864.38.
"It was mainly due to the news that Deutsche Bank is facing problems as its customers are reducing their exposure," the dealer said.
Trading on the US' Wall Street dropped on selling in San Fransisco-based bank Wells Fargo and other major banks on concerns over Deutsche Bank.
On the scoreboard, the FBM Emas Index erased 122.38 points to 11,687.58, the FBMT100 Index decreased 122.20 points to 11,387.09 and the FBM Emas Shariah Index gave up 108.83 points to 12,348.18.
The FBM 70 dropped 163.36 points to 13,722.13 and the FBM Ace was 43.00 points lower at 5,219.91.
Sector-wise, the Finance Index gave up 192.50 points to 14,158.29, the Industrial Index fell 30.31 points to 3,110.02 and the Plantation Index was 38.79 points easier at 7,920.10.
Of the heavyweights, Tenaga and Public Bank fell six sen each to RM14.30 and RM19.82 respectively, Maybank declined 12 sen to RM7.50 and Petronas Chemicals was four sen lower at RM6.65.
Among actives, Hiap Teck and Lion Corp declined 2.5 sen each to 33 sen and one sen respectively, while Sumatec was flat at 8.5 sen and Next rose one sen to three sen.
Main market turnover decreased to 1.20 billion shares valued at RM2.10 billion from 1.25 billion shares worth RM1.65 billion yesterday.
The ACE Market volume fell to 252.12 million units valued at RM29 million versus 260.61 million units valued at RM28.71 million.
Warrants contracted to 289.16 million shares worth RM53.76 million against 322.87 million shares worth RM59.54 million.
Consumer products accounted for 72.55 million shares traded on the Main Market, industrial products (374.22 million), construction (55.10 million), trade and services (442.65 million), technology (57.98 million), infrastructure (14.31 million), SPAC (36.84 million), finance (62.01 million), hotels (137,100), properties (52.89 million), plantations (22.65 million), mining (24,000), REITs (11.30 million) and closed/fund (184,900).
The physical price of gold as at 5pm stood at RM170.47 per gramme, up RM1.24 from RM169.23 at 5pm yesterday. — Bernama