KUALA LUMPUR: Bursa Malaysia was broadly lower despite a slight gain in blue chips as the market sentiment remained weak on interest rate hike concerns and uncertainty over the global banking crisis.
At 12.30pm, the FBM KLCI was up 4.71 points to 1,401.31.
There were 401 decliners compared with 258 gainers for a negative overall market.
Trading volume was 1.46 billion shares valued at RM666.02mil.
Bank stocks gained with Public Bank adding three sen to RM3.92, CIMB rising four sen to RM5.20, Maybank adding one sen to RM8.45 and Hong Leong Bank gaining two sne to RM20.
Press Metal
rose 11 sen to RM4.80, Sime Darby Plantation gained five sen to RM4.21 and and PETRONAS Chemicals climbed 10 sen to RM6.92.
Meanwhile, Ayer slumped 55 sen to RM6.72, MPI dropped 40 sen to RM28.40 and KESM shed 32 sen to RM7.08.
Top actives were CFM down two sen to 21 sen, Sapura Energy unchanged at four sen and Jade Marvel down 0.5 sen to 29.5 sen.
In regional markets, equities prices rose as iproved sentiment following First Citizen BanSahres' deal to buy failed Silicon Valley Bank.
Japan's Nikkei fell 0.1% to 27,450, South Korea's Kospi rose 0.6% to 2,424 and China's composite index was unchanged at 3,252.
In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng was up 0.7% to 19,707 and Australia's ASX200 rose 0.9% to 7,025.
