KUALA LUMPUR: At midday, the FBM KLCI was 4.11 points lower at 1,821.80 points on profit-taking from gains seen at the previous close.
There were 4.41 billion shares traded worth a value a RM1.75bil. There were 585 decliners to 146 advancers and 596 counters unchanged.
Petronas counters were among the leading decliners on a day that saw oil and gas counters in active play; Petronas Chemicals fell 10 sen to RM8.08 and Petronas Gas slid 54 sen to RM18.36.
Another big decliner was Hong Leong Bank, which dropped 30 sen to RM17.18.
Other banking stocks were trading mixed - Ambank fell eight sen to RM4.69, RHB dropped four sen to RM5.16 and Maybank gained one sen to RM9.86.
In plantations, Sime Darby Plantation
dipped five sen to RM5.49 while IOI slid two sen to RM4.62. KL Kepong was unchagned at RM25.24.
Small cap oil and gas counters continued to see high trading volumes on Tuesday morning, with Sumatec getting a lift of 1.5 sen to 12 sen and Perisai Petroleum rising 2.5 sen to 7.5 sen.
Sapura Energy fell 2.5 sen to 85.5 sen while UMW Oil and Gas dropped one sen to 40.5 sen.
Refiner Hengyuan was among the biggest laggards, dropping 86 sen to RM14.28 on its second consecutive day of profit-taking. Petron Malaysia als dropped 54 sen to RM12.24.
In oil markets, Brent crude settled slightly at US$70.02 after sliding back 24 cents from the previous close. The international benchmark had been driven up by supply cuts as well as robus economic growth in global economies.
Meanwhile, US light crude rose 21 cents to US$64.51 a barrel.
The ringgit was little changed against the greenback, sliding back 0.02% to 3.9563. However, it slipped 0.33% against the pound sterling at 5.4563 and 0.08% against the Singapore dollar at 2.9929.
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