KUALA LUMPUR: Bursa Malaysia bucked the broadly higher regional trend as investors took profit off the table, sending the FBM KLCI lower on selling in banking stocks.
At 5 pm, the FBM KLCI ended down 6.37 points, or 0.42% to 1,526.98 after rising to an intraday high of 1,530.28.
Market breadth turned negative as losers overpowered the gainers on a ratio of 584-to-390 stocks. Traded volumes stood at 2.63 billion shares worth RM1.94bil.
Dealers said a bout of profit-taking sent many stocks lower, with the local bourse also weighed down by selling in banking stocks and Tenaga Nasional.
They noted that recent gains prompted investors to lock in profits, especially amid lingering external uncertainties.
Public Bank slipped five sen to RM4.24, pulling the index down by 1.3722 points. Maybank fell six sen to RM9.54, weighing on the index by 1.0249 points, while Tenaga Nasional declined 14 sen to RM13.16, trimming 1.1538 points off the index.
CIMB slipped four sen to RM6.75, dragging the index down by 0.6083 points, while Hong Leong Bank fell 24 sen to RM18.90, weighing on the index by 0.7356 points.
Gainers among the FBM KLCI component stocks were Nestle, PETRONAS Gas, QL Resources and MISC.
On the broader market, Malaysian Pacific Industries
fell 46 sen to RM19.88, Heineken dropped 26 sen to RM23.32, and Hong Leong Industries eased 18 sen to RM12.78.
Meanwhile, F&N gained 38 sen to RM29, Ralco rose 14.5 sen to RM1.11, and KJTS added 12 sen to RM1.44.
On the forex market, the ringgit was quoted at 4.2395 against the US dollar, up 0.9%, and at 3.2908 against the Singapore dollar, gaining 0.07%.
Across the region, MSCI’s Asia ex-Japan stock index rose 0.77%.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng delivered a 0.92% gain, China’s CSI300 advanced 0.4%, and the Shanghai Composite added 0.66%. South Korea’s Kospi ended 0.91% higher.
In contrast, Japan’s Nikkei 225 fell 1.25%.
