KUALA LUMPUR: The FBM KLCI slid below the 1,700-point mark to come precariously close to crossing below the 100-day simple moving average as the corporate earnings season came to a close.
Disappointing earnings announced by index heavyweight Tenaga Nasional yesterday drove the energy major's share price lower, falling 38 sen to RM13.04 and shaving over three points off the benchmark.
CIMB was also a leading decliner on the back of its own earnings announcement, falling 18 sen to RM5.67.
Genting rounded out the top three laggards on the KLCI on Friday, dropping 17 sen to RM7.20
At 12.30pm, the FBM KLCI was down 9.04 points to 1,698.69. Trading volume was 1.46 billion shares valued at RM961.52mil. There were 445 decliners versus 351 gainers and 312 counters unchanged.
Most actively traded counters on the stock exchange were Bumi Armada
sliding two sen to 16 sen, VS Industry up 6.5 sen to RM1.06 and IFCAMSC adding one sen to 33.5 sen.
Elsewhere in the region, stock markets were boosted by MSCI's announcement that it would increase the proportion of Chinese shares in its global benchmarks, even as the US posted stronger-than-expected economic growth.
The Shanghai Composite Index was up 0.15% while the CSI 300 Index and Hang Seng Index were each up 0.45%. Japan's Nikkei Index jumped 1.15%.
South Korea's Kospi remained closed on Friday for a national holiday following a 1.8% rout in the previous session due to the failure of US nuclear disarmament talks with North Korea.
The opposing forces of rising US supply and Opec production cuts continued to keep crude oil prices in range. On Friday, a tighter market drove US crude up 19 cents to US$57.41 a barrel and Brent crude up 28 cents to US$66.59 a barrel.
In currencies, the ringgit slid against a stronger greenback as US GDP exceeded expectations in the fourth quarter of 2018. The local currency fell 0.15% against the US dollar to 4.0722.
It rose 0.2% against the pound sterling at 5.4006 and 0.1% against the Singapore dollar to 3.0131.
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