KUALA LUMPUR: Trading volume on Bursa Malaysia surged to 3.54 billion shares on Wednesday on high buying interest in selected banking stocks.
At 5pm, 3.54 billion shares were transacted at a value of RM5.25bil, a level not seen in a while.
The FBM KLCI ended 9.79 points, or 0.7% lower at 1,387.12. The move is the biggest since falling 0.77% on April 26. The market traded within a range of 17.48 points between an intra-day high of 1,398.38 and a low of 1,380.90 during the session.
For the month, the index declined about 2%.
Market breadth was negative with 360 securities ending in the green versus 521 which closed weaker.
CIMB slid seven sen to RM4.82 with 86.11 million shares traded. Maybank added six sen to RM8.65 with 59.73 million shares done and Public Bank decreased three sen to RM3.81 with RM54.05 million shares exchanged hands.
MyEG rose five sen to 84 sen. It is the most actively traded counter on Bursa Malaysia with 233.28 million shares done.
Newly listed Radium declined 11.5 sen to 38.5 sen with 226.67 million shares traded.
Among the losers, Kuala Lumpur Kepong fell 76 sen to RM20.88, PETRONAS Dagangan lost 70 sen to RM21.12 and F&N eased 48 sen to RM25.30.
Nestle surged RM4 to RM134, Ajinomoto added 58 sen to RM14.86 and PPB gained 36 sen to RM16.26.
On the external front, Japan’s Nikkei 225 fell 1.41% to 30,887.88 while South Korea’s Kospi fell 0.32%, to 2,577.12.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index rose 0.2%, to 26,660.16. China’s CSI300 index fell 1.94% to 18,234.27 while the Shanghai Composite Index eased 0.61% to 3,204.56 points.
