KUALA LUMPUR: Bursa Malaysia snapped its two straight days of gains on Thursday as investors locked in profits.
At closing, the benchmark index ended 0.75 of a point lower at 1,512.36, its intraday low.
On the broader market, gainers trounced losers by 574 to 361, while 454 counters were unchanged. About 3.2 billion shares, valued at RM2bil, changed hands.
In today's session, 16 of the KLCI-component stocks ended in negative territory against 10 that closed higher.
Top losers among index-linked stocks included Nestle, Hong Leong Bank and Genting. Nestle tumbled 40 sen to RM120.40, HL Bank shed 20 sen to RM19 and Genting declined 11 sen to RM4.81.
Kuala Lumpur Kepong added 30 sen to RM22.32, PPB rose 14 sen to RM15 and YTL gained six sen to RM2.30.
On the broader market, Malaysian Pacific Industries
lost 52 sen to RM26.08, KESM declined 15 sen to RM6.70, Ajinomoto gained 26 sen to RM16.66 and Carlsberg rose 24 sen to RM19.68.
On the forex market, the ringgit was down 0.3% against the greenback to 4.7703, 0.09% against the pound sterling to 60.199, and 0.02% against the Singapore dollar to 3.5453.
US West Texas Intermediate crude added nine cents to US$73.95 and Brent gained 16 cents to US$79.37 per barrel.
On the external front, MSCI’s Asia ex-Japan stock index was lower by 0.36%.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 advanced 2.06% to 36,863.28 while South Korea’s Kospi closed up 0.41% at 2,620.32.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng closed down 1.27% at 15,878.07.
China’s CSI 300 index rose 0.64% to 3,364.93 while the Shanghai Composite advanced 1.28% to 2,865.90.
