KUALA LUMPUR: Bursa Malaysia finished on a lower note on Friday as the overall market sentiment remained weak.
The market bellwether closed at 1,538.02, down 13.42 points, or 0.87%, taking its full-week drop to 0.71%. All sectoral indices closed lower apart from plantation and healthcare.
In the broader market, losers outnumbered gainers with 679 stocks ending lower and 396 stocks finishing higher. That gave a market breadth of 0.58 indicating the bears were in control.
Trading volume was brisk at 4.81 billion shares valued at RM3.08bil.
In terms of fund flows, foreign funds were net sellers on Thursday offloading RM161mil worth of equities.
Local institutions and retailers emerged as net buyers with purchases valued at RM161mil and RM1mil respectively.
Among the losers, Nestle slid RM1.50 to RM123.40, PETRONAS Dagangan fell 42 sen to RM22.42, Kuala Lumpur Kepong declined 36 sen to RM22.04 and Gamuda lost 31 sen to RM4.98.
United Plantations jumped 96 sen to RM23.08, Batu Kawan added 22 sen to RM19.60, Sarawak Oil Palms
gained 12 sen to RM2.96 and QL Resources climbed 12 sen to RM5.93.
Bursa Malaysia has suspended the short-selling of AirAsia X’s (AAX) shares for the rest of the day. The suspension was made after the airline’s stock dropped more than 15%, or 15 sen, from the reference price.
AAX closed down 20 sen, or 11.76% to RM1.50 with 25.63 million shares traded.
Meanwhile, the ringgit was quoted at 4.7415, up 0.03% against the US dollar. It rose 0.2% against the Singapore dollar at 3.5207.
US West Texas Intermediate crude fell 11 cents to US$78.15 and Brent added one cent to US$81.92 per barrel.
Around the region, MSCI's Asia ex-Japan stock index was 0.22% higher.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 ended at a new closing high of 39,910.82, up 1.9% while South Korea’s Kospi closed down 0.37%, at 2,642.36.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index was up 0.47%, at 16,589.44 and China’s CSI 300 index edged up 0.62% to 3,537.80.
