KUALA LUMPUR: The rebound on the local market lost steam after the first half-hour of Friday trading, taking Bursa Malaysia to the red for most of the morning session.
At 12.30pm, the FBM KLCI was down 5.1 points to 1,658.56. Trading volume was 1.49 billion shares valued at RM953.31mil. There were 419 decliners versus 288 gainers and 348 counters unchanged.
Bursa Malaysia has bucked the wider regional trend for the second straight day as most Asian shares rose on optimistic US data and Wall Street's overnight rally on rising tech stocks.
Singapore's Straits Times Index and Jakarta's Composite Index were also lagging behind regional counterparts, with marginal losses at midday.
From a technical standpoint, Kenanga research said the outlook lacks any positive signals as key momentum indicators remain lacklustre.
Price action has been negative over the week with the FBM KLCI falling further below the 50-day simple moving average.
While 22 of the 30 KLCI stocks were in the red, Maybank contributed the most to the index's decline, losing eight sen to RM9.32.
The banking heavyweight had been one of the leading losers of the previous session.
Public Bank meanwhile erased gains seen earlier to end the morning on a flat note at RM23.86. The bank had also been one of the biggest decliners yesterday.
Meanwhile, Ambank, which experienced the highest percentage of loss on the KLCI yesterday, rebounded six sen to RM4.53
Among telcos, Maxis shed three sen to RM5.30, Digi fell three sen to RM4.58 and Axiata dipped one sen to RM4.20.
On the wider exchange, TM came under selling pressure on news that it was being faced with a RM480mil suit for the termination of its sponsorship with Malaysian Football League.
The counter fell six sen to RM3.16.
Oil prices meanwhile continued to slide as the three-month rally led by Opec supply cuts lost steam. US crude dropped 14 cents to US$59.84 a barrel and Brent crude fell 14 cents to US$67.72 a barrel.
In currencies, the ringgit was flat against the US dollar at 4.0605. It rose 0.3% against the pound sterling at 5.3322 and 0.15% against the Singapore dollar at 3.0096.
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