KUALA LUMPUR; The local bourse finished lower on Wednesday amid negative trading sentiment ahead of Bank Negara's overnight policy rate (OPR) decision.
According to a Bloomberg survey, all four analysts expect the central bank to keep the OPR unchanged at 3%.
At 5pm, the FBM KLCI fell 6.81 points, or 0.47% to 1,435.33 with 18 of the component stocks closing lower while six chalked up gains.
Broader market sentiment was weak with 562 losers outpacing 319 gainers and 401 counters which traded unchanged. Turnover was at 2.8 billion shares valued at RM1.8bil.
Among the losers on Bursa Malaysia, Nestle tumbled RM1.30 to RM122.50, Hextar Technologies shed 64 sen to RM23.12, F&N eased 34 sen to RM25.76 and Malaysian Pacific Industries
gave up 32 sen to RM25.42.
Ranhill Utilities rose 15.5 sen to 73.5 sen, Batu Kawan gained 10 sen to RM20.60, Malayan Cement climbed nine sen to RM3.67 and Gas Malaysia added nine sen to RM3.38.
On the forex market, the ringgit was down 0.15% against the greenback to 4.7708. The local unit is up 0.14% against the pound sterling to 5.7990 and up 0.2% against the Singapore dollar to 3.4826.
On the external front, Japan’s Nikkei 225 added 2.41% to close at 31,601.65 while South Korea’s Kospi ended 1.03% higher at 2,301.56.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index was down 0.06% at 17,101.78.
China’s CSI300 index closed down 0.04% at 3,571.03 and the Shanghai Composite index was up 0.14% at 3,023.08 points.
