KUALA LUMPUR: Bursa Malaysia ended the week broadly lower, driven by persistent profit-taking, mostly seen in telecommunications and healthcare companies, amid cautious sentiments in the regional markets, dealers said.
At 5 pm, the FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) declined 12.18 points to end at 1,504.44 compared with Thursday's close of 1,516.62.
The benchmark index, which opened 0.20 of a point better at 1,516.82 this morning, moved between 1,502.91 and 1,519.68 throughout the day.
Market breadth was negative as losers led gainers 426 to 395, while 449 counters were unchanged, 1,040 untraded, and 17 others suspended.
Total turnover decreased to 2.11 billion units worth RM1.53 billion from 2.51 billion units worth RM1.95 billion on Thursday.
Axiata and IHH Healthcare were among the biggest contributors to the losses in the composite index, declining 12 sen and 10 sen to RM3 and RM6.41 respectively, contributing a combined 3.37 points.
Rakuten Trade Sdn Bhd vice-president of equity research Thong Pak Leng said key regional markets closed mostly lower as investors were cautious and reluctant to make large moves amid uncertainty about the near-term outlook for the markets following recent strength.
"Meanwhile, worries prevail that the US Federal Reserve and central banks in Europe and Asia might derail global economic growth as they hike rates to cool inflation that is running at multi-decade highs,” he told Bernama today.
Among other heavyweights, Maybank slipped 3.0 sen to RM8.92, Public Bank was 4.0 sen weaker at RM4.61, Petronas Chemicals fell 1.0 sen to RM8.74, CIMB lost 5.0 sen to RM5.42 and Tenaga Nasional went down 8.0 sen to RM8.70.
Of the actives, Agmo Holdings rose 2.5 sen to 81 sen, JAKS Resources gained 3.5 sen to 31 sen, Top Glove earned half sen to 87 sen while Hartalega
advanced 1.0 sen to RM1.81. - Bernama
