KUALA LUMPUR: The FBM KLCI was range-bound on Friday as investors took a breather from the week's rally and digested the deluge of war-related headlines from the Middle East.
The benchmark was up just 0.61 points to 1,723.25, having put on about 1.6% over the course of the week as AI-related tech earnings drove up global sentiment.
The sentiment has since subsided, going by the profit-taking in regional markets. South Korea's Kospi dropped 0.5% to 6,444 after having breached the 6,500 mark to hit record trading highs on Thursday.
In China, the Shanghai Composite index shed 0.58% to 4,069 and the CSI300 slid 0.85% to 4,745. Hong Kong's Hang Seng was down 0.2% to 26,862.
Oil prices have remained elevated at US$105.98 a barrel at the time of writing, leaving traders wary of out-of-control inflation even as the chief of the International Energy Agency issued a warning over the impact of the ongoing energy crisis.
On Bursa Malaysia, the market breadth was neutral with 484 advancing issues compared to 494 declining. The trading volume was 1.83 billion shares valued at RM1.43bil.
The majority of sectors were negative, led lower by plantations, utilities and healthcare.
Notable gainers on the FBM KLCI included Press Metal
, which jumped 27 sen to RM8.34 and Nestle, rising 94 sen to RM98.84.
Most active stocks were VS Industry up one sen to 21.5 sen, Zetrix Ai losing 0.5 sen to 86 sen and Mega Fortris dropping four sen to RM1.25.
