KUALA LUMPUR: Traders may be cashing in on recent gains as the earlier lead in the FBM KLCI evaporated on profit-taking activities.
At 12.30pm, the benchmark index was down 3.62 points to 1,711.54, easing off the week's high achieved yesterday as traders sought to realise some profit before the weekend.
Energy shares were sapped of their momentum after oil prices fell overnight on fears of disruptions in the Middle East. PETRONAS Chemicals shed three sen to RM3.27, PETRONAS Dagangan dropped 12 sen to RM20.58 and MISC slid six sen to RM7.80.
There was a mixed result among the banking heavyweight as Maybank rallied on for an additional eight sen to RM11.18 while CIMB dropped four sen to RM8.41 and Hong Leong Bank fell 16 sen to RM23.84.
The financial services sector, however, was on solid footing overall, adding another 0.16% to 20,737.53 as it sought to close out the week on a record high.
Lower liners on Bursa Malaysia tracked the blue chips lower, leading to a negative scoreboard of 504 decliners compared to 395 gainers. Trading volume was 1.88 billion shares valued at RM1.42bil.
Meanwhile, Northeast Group remained one of the day's top traded shares with 31.33 million shares changing hands. The counters surged 6.5 sen to 66 sen.
Other actives included Capital A, up 2.5 sne to 55.5 sen and Velesto
rising 0.5 sen to 28 sen.
Asian markets, meanwhile, were seen losing steam after being driven higher by AI-related stocks on an optimistic outlook by TSMC.
Japan's Nikkei was little changed at 54,058, while South Korea's Kospi gained 0.33% to 4,813.
In Mainland China, the Shanghai Composite Index was down 0.22% to 4,103 while the CSI 300 dropped 0.15% to 4,744.
Hong Kong's Hang Seng was down 0.27% to 26,851.
