Heavy selling in blue-chips dampens mart

0

KUALA LUMPUR: Heavy selling in blue-chips dampens trading on Bursa Malaysia and pushed it to finish easier yesterday, ahead of the Malaysia Day holiday yesterday, dealers said.

At 5pm, the benchmark FBM KLCI dropped 6.68 points to 1,430.93 after opening 5.06 points higher at 1,442.67.

A dealer said the losses in heavyweights and big-capitalised stocks pushed the key index to an intra-day low of 1,427.75 after hitting a high of 1,443.51.

Sime Darby, which fell 47 sen to RM8, was affected by the Securities Commission’s investigation into its acquisition of a 30 per cent stake in property developer, Eastern & Oriental Bhd.

Affin Investment Bank’s head of retail, Dr Nazri Khan, said the bearish trend was expected to continue on negative news like China’s failure to step in and help the indebted European countries like Italy.

“China is not acting as expected by the investors and this has affected investor sentiment,” he said.

Bursa Malaysia’s Finance Index fell 70.29 points to 13,337.79 and the Industrial Index decreased 6.85 points to 2,643.10.

The Plantation Index, however, rose 4.88 points to 7,216.24.

The FBM Emas Index was down 38.55 points at 9,740.33 and the Mid 70 Index lost 26.89 points to 10,449.25.

The FBM Ace Index, however, added 5.61 points to 3,749.49.

Losers beat gainers by 393 to 291 while 296 counters were unchanged, 505 untraded and 25 suspended.

Turnover decreased to 729.26 million shares worth RM1.53 billion
from 766.82 million shares worth RM1.31 billion yesterday.

Among active stocks, Eastern & Oriental gained three sen to RM1.54, Systech improved 1.5 sen to 27 sen, while Tejari Technologies was unchanged at 5.5 sen.

Of the heavyweights, Maybank lost one sen to RM8.59, CIMB decreased four sen to RM6.98 and Petronas Chemicals slipped nine sen to RM6.16.

The Main Market volume increased to 569.66 million shares worth RM1.51 billion from 567.17 million shares worth RM1.28 billion on Wednesday.

Turnover on the ACE Market fell to 91.11 million units valued at RM13.34 million from 131.11 million units valued at RM20.77 million yesterday.

Warrants rose 62.78 million shares worth RM4.43 million from 62.13 million shares worth RM4.23 million previously.

Consumer products accounted for 33.95 million shares traded on the Main Market, industrial products 80.76 million, construction 35.29 million, trade and services 192.16 million, technology 11.94 million, infrastructure 18.50 million, finance 57.24 million, hotels 369,800, properties 113.88 million, plantations 19.34 million, mining 43,300, REITs 5.16 million and closed/fund 58,200. — Bernama