KUALA LUMPUR: Bursa Malaysia pared earlier losses but still ended lower on Thursday, weighed down by a broad regional sell-off despite selective buying in heavyweight stocks.
At closing, the benchmark FBM KLCI fell 11.02 points, or 0.63%, to 1,737.15 after hitting an intraday low of 1,733.38.
Winners and losers were closely balanced, with 566 gainers against 577 losers and 574 that were flat. About 3.24 billion shares, valued at RM2.91bil, changed hands.
Among the decliners, Heineken Malaysia
tumbled RM2 to RM17.10, Nestle shed RM1.20 to RM101.30, Carlsberg lost 94 sen to RM14.94, and Hong Leong Industries fell 34 sen to RM17.68.
MRCB, which secured the RM3.028bil Penang LRT railway systems contract with Theta Edge, rose three sen, or 9.68%, to close at 34 sen, while Theta Edge gained 16 sen, or 29.09%, to 71 sen.
Other gainers included Malaysian Pacific Industries, which jumped 72 sen to RM47.66, UWC, up 31 sen to RM6.79, IJM, which gained 17 sen to RM2.66, and Ayer Holdings, which climbed 15 sen to RM7.50.
On the forex market, the ringgit strengthened 0.12% against the US dollar to 4.0892 and edged up 0.11% versus the Singapore dollar to 3.1898.
According to Bursa Malaysia data, foreign investors and local institutions were net buyers, purchasing RM54mil and RM115mil worth of local equities, respectively, while retailers were net sellers of RM169mil.
Meanwhile, Reuters reported that oil prices rose on concerns over the outcome of Iran-Oman talks and reported attacks on Saudi tankers in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, which renewed supply fears.
Brent crude advanced eight cents to US$79.53 a barrel while US West Texas Intermediate crude was at US$75.10 per barrel, down 12 cents.
On the external front, MSCI's Asia ex-Japan index fell 1.86%, with regional markets ending mostly lower.
Japan's Nikkei 225 dropped 0.93% to 65,683.26, while South Korea's Kospi tumbled 4.58% to 6,296.38.
Hong Kong's Hang Seng fell 1.5% to 25,530.28, while China's CSI300 eased 0.15% to 4,651.31 and the Shanghai Composite edged up 0.57% to 3,900.35.
