KUALA LUMPUR: Bursa Malaysia turned softer after an early morning push as investors practised caution ahead of the G20 summit meeting.
US president Donald Trump and China's Xi Jinping will meet over the weekend to negotiate a resolution to the trade conflict.
At 12.30pm, the FBM KLC was down 1.35 points to 1,694.99. Turnover was 1.28 billion shares valued at RM942.78mil. There were 464 decliners versus 238 gainers and 306 counters unchanged.
IHH continued to rise for a third session on news of Khazanah's stake sale to Mitsui & Co, picking up another nine sen to RM5.59.
Genting counters rebounded following its continued rout yesterday. Genting Malaysia, which was one of the most heavily traded counters, rose nine sen to RM2.93 and Genting gained six sen to RM6.40.
Leading decliners in the morning session were Axiata dropping nine sen to RM3.69, Maybank falling six sen to RM9.39 and Sime Darby Plantation
sliding eight sen to RM4.89.
Most active counters on Bursa Malaysia included Bumi Armada, which continued to decline after heavy selling yesterday as research houses downgraded the counter.
The stock lost 2.5 sen to 15.6 sen on 1.54 billion shares done.
JAKS Resources also saw strong selling pressure, losing 8.5 sen to 49 sen, while My EG jumped 11 sen to RM1.16.
In oil markets, Brent crude remained below the US$60 a barrel mark despite firming up on expectations that OPEC members will agree to some supply cuts next week.
The international benchmark for crude rose 28 cents to US$59.76 a barrel. WTI crude rose 16 cents to US$51.61 a barrel.
In currencies, the ringgit was flat against the greenback at 4.1865. It rose 0.15% against the pound sterling at 5.3497 and was unchanged against the Singapore dollar at 3.0548.
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