Weak sentiment drags Bursa Malaysia lower
KUALA LUMPUR: Share prices on Bursa Malaysia ended November lower in sync with its regional peers as weak market sentiment curbed investors' risk appetite for buying and ahead of long weekend, dealers said.
The benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) finished at 1,717.86, down 2.52 points from Wednesday's close of 1,720.38.
The market bellwether, which opened 0.76 of-a-point lower at 1,719.62, fluctuated between 1,716.76 and 1,727.62.
The overall market breadth was weaker with losers outpacing gainers by 500 to 367, while 403 counters were unchanged, 608 untraded and 66 others suspended.
In an active trading, the volume increased to 2.47 billion units worth RM6.03 billion from Wednesday's 1.96 billion units valued at RM2.79 billion.
A dealer said despite numerous positive corporate earnings results, interest in the market has been clouded by the unfavourable developments on the external front, pushing investors towards consolidation.
He said the sentiment was influenced by the mixed closing of US stock market, which saw investors booked early profits from technology stocks, alongside bullish manufacturing data from China.
"We are lacking significance factors to lift Bursa Malaysia, even Sime Darby Bhd's demerged plantation and property arms were also not appealing enough to boost the momentum," he told Bernama.
Sime Darby Plantation fell 58 sen to RM5.01 and Sime Darby Property lost 30 sen to RM1.20. Both stocks carried composite index (CI) weightage of 3.763% and 1.01%, respectively.
Sime Darby Bhd, which accounted for 6.018% of the CI's weightage and the most actively-traded stock today, rose 50 sen to RM2.35 with 124.72 million shares traded.
Among heavyweights, Tenaga rose six sen to RM15.46, CIMB was up 11 sen to RM6.05, while Maybank, which posted strong third-quarter results today, increased five sen to RM9.25 with 62.09 shares transacted.
However, Public Bank lost 36 sen to RM19.90 and Petronas Chemicals erased seven sen to RM7.40.
Of the actives, Press Metal perked 11 sen to RM5.20, SP Setia bagged seven sen to RM3.49, while Trive Property inched up half-a-sen to six sen.
On the scoreboard, the FBM Emas Index rose by 8.81 points to 12,408.31, FBMT 100 Index gained 13.07 points to 12,069.46, FBM Emas Shariah Index improved 9.44 points to 12,920.15 and the FBM 70 Index surged 130.37 points to 15,440.48.
The FBM Ace, however, gave up 84.74 points to 6,311.63.
Sector-wise, the Finance Index rose 21.44 points to 15,926.33, Plantation Index bagged 18.73 points to 7,894.19 and the Industrial Index soared 79.71 points to 3,172.89.
The Main Market volume rose to 1.83 billion units worth at RM5.94 billion from 1.38 billion units worth RM2.7 billion on Wednesday.
Volume on the ACE Market was slightly higher at 348.22 million shares valued at RM63.38 million versus 3364.92 million shares valued at RM69.59 million yesterday.
Warrants volume widened to 287.43 million units worth RM26.37 million from 207.03 million units worth RM26.66 million previously.
Consumer products accounted for 94.21 million shares traded on the Main Market, industrial products (354.07 million), construction (66.62 million), trade and services (645.21 million), technology (143.15 million), infrastructure (23.23 million), SPAC (1.51 million), finance (162.73 million), hotels (399,800), properties (245.82 million), plantations (76.48 million), mining (86,600), REITs (14.15 million), and closed/fund (17,000).
Bursa Malaysia and its subsidiaries will be closed on Dec 1, 2017 in conjunction with Maulidur Rasul. Trading would resume on Dec 4, 2017. — Bernama