KUALA LUMPUR: Bursa Malaysia closed lower for the second consecutive day today as it continued to take a breather from the recent rally, dealers said.
At 5 pm, the benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI ended at 1,822.92, down 4.03 points from yesterday's close of 1,826.95, after opening 1.95 points better at 1,828.9.
The market barometer moved between 1,821.27 and 1,830.63 throughout the day.
A dealer said profit-taking correction should persist for the next few days to neutralise extreme overbought momentum and the peaking volume, and promote more sustainable uptrend ahead.
He said the crossover of 1,840 yesterday suggested that some market participants were excited about the positive market momentum created over the past few days and were seen willing to gamble their luck on the buying side after the extraordinary market volume of 6.96 billion shares recorded on Monday.
"However, the inability on the part of the market to go higher than 1,840.15 seemed to signify that all of the aggressive potential buyers had already jumped in and there was no new buying support to carry the market higher on an immediate basis,” he said.
He added that this created a concern of profit-taking pressure which saw the market slipping back below the 1,830 level.
Among heavyweights, Maybank added one sen to RM9.84 and Public Bank rose two sen to RM20.84.
TNB lost two sen to RM15.86, Petronas Chemicals declined three sen to RM8.11 and CIMB Group slipped one sen to RM6.74.
Of the actives, UMW O&G lost 1.5 sen to 41 sen, Sapura Energy fell three sen to 90.5 sen and Borneo Oil slipped half-a-sen to nine sen.
Sumatec edged-up half-a-sen to seven sen and Orion IXL garnered 3.5 sen to 15.5 sen.
The FBM Emas Index eased 40.46 points to 13,229.87, FBMT 100 Index fell 37.64 points to 12,866.13, FBM Emas Shariah Index was 38.59 points lower to 13,733.15 and the FBM 70 was 79.42 points lower to 16,637.5.
The FBM Ace put on 31.37 points to 7,041.03.
Sector-wise, the Finance Index shed 26.021 points to 17,122.28 and Industrial Index declined 12.09 points to 3,400.58.
The Plantation Index, however, added 3.27 points to 8,098.
The overall market breadth was bearish as losers outnumbered gainers by 630 to 426, while 386 counters were unchanged, 361 untraded and 20 others suspended.
Total turnover fell to 5.74 billion units valued at RM3.77 billion from yesterday's 6.47 billion units valued at RM4.41 billion.