Bursa Malaysia ends lower on continuous profit-taking

KUALA LUMPUR: Bursa Malaysia saw a follow-through selling pressure on Tuesday, pushing the benchmark index lower.

At 5pm, the FBM KLCI closed down 7.15 points, or 0.46% to 1,541.90 after moving between 1,551.33 and 1,536.52.

The overall market breadth was bullish with gainers thumping losers 524 to 383, while 415 counters closed unchanged. Trading volume was brisk at 3.51 billion shares valued at RM1.93bil.

The KLCI-component stocks were overwhelmingly negative, with 17 losers and nine gainers while four closed unchanged.

Petronas Dagangan shed 42 sen to RM19.70, Petronas Gas fell 38 sen to RM16.84, PPB lost 34 sen to RM16.78 and Hartalega declined 12 sen to RM5.52.

Nestle led the gains among the index-linked counters. The counter jumped 40 sen to RM134.

Hong Leong Financial Group rose 26 sen to RM17.60 and Hong Leong Bank added 20 sen to RM18.96.

RHB Bank, Genting and Genting Malaysia added five sen each to RM5.45, RM4.78 and RM2.96 respectively.

On the broader market, Genetec tumbled RM1.74 to RM40.90, Sam Engineering fell 22 sen to RM23.56 and BSL Corp lost 17 sen to 84 sen.

KESM jumped 60 sen to RM13, Carlsberg gained 52 sen to RM20.98, and Aurelius added 28 sen to RM2.68.

Elsewhere in the region, Japan’s Nikkei 225 rose 1.77% to 29,301.79, its highest close since Nov. 25.

South Korea’s Kospi closed up 0.47 points, or 0.02%, at 2,989.24 while Hong Kong Hang Seng added 15.09 points, or 0.06% to 23,289.84.

China’s CSI300 index fell 0.5%, to 4,917.77, while the Shanghai Composite Index lost 0.2% to 3,632.33 points.