KUALA LUMPUR: Investors took some money off the table following the FBM KLCI's stellar 20-point jump in yesterday's session.
At mid-day, the index was down 4.66 points to 1,754.34 points. Turnover was 1.14 million shares with a value of RM917.39mil. There were 349 decliners compared to 228 advancers and 538 counters unchanged.
While Malaysian counters retreated from previous gains, the performance of the local bourse mimicked that of other Asian markets as a roadblock to tax reform in the US is threatening to end the year's fairy-tale run for equities on a sour note.
Back home, yesterday's leading advancers in the financial sector were among the few KLCI counters to put on gains. Maybank added five sen to RM9.54 while Public Bank grew six sen to RM20.86.
CIMB, however, slipped three sen to RM6.34, while Hong Leong Bank dropped four sen to RM17.04.
Genting shaved off 18 sen to RM9.07 while Genting Malaysia declined five sen to RM5.64.
Among other laggards, Hong Leong Financial Group slipped 24 sen to RM17.66 and British American Tobacco
took off RM2 to RM38.20.
On the wider market, Hap Seng dropped 16 sen to RM9.61, Southern Acids fell 17 sen to RM4.22 and Far East Holdings slipped 12 sen to RM8.80.
Among advancers, oil refiner Hengyuan put on 36 sen to RM12.90, Kossan gained 16 sen to RM7.91 and Kumpulan Powernet added 13 sen to 85 sen.
In oil markets, US production continues to rise although this was offset by the disruption to supply from the North Sea pipeline.
US light crude rose 15 cents to US$57.19 a barrel and Brent crude gained five cents to US$63.36 a barrel.
In currencies, the greenback weakened on concerns that Republicans had met a stumbling block on the way to US tax reform.
The ringgit stregnthened 0.06% against the US dollar at 4.0868. It weakened against the 0.11% pound sterling at 5.4914 and dropped 0.22% against the Singapore dollar at 3.0342.
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