KUALA LUMPUR: Bursa Malaysia extended earlier losses to end the half-day trading today on a sour note, dampened by weak interest mostly in the telecommunication index-linked counters.
Snapping its six straight winning sessions, the benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) settled 11.22 points lower at 1,644.09, from 1,655.31 at 5 pm Monday.
The index, which opened 1.29 points weaker at 1,654.02 earlier, moved between 1,644.09 and 1,655.89 throughout the morning session.
Telco stocks, Axiata lost 12 sen to RM4.56, while Maxis and Digi trimmed 11 sen each to RM5.44 and RM4.77. The three counters dragged the composite index down by 4.913 points.
Market breadth was almost even with 331 gainers and 342 losers, while 353 counters were unchanged, 856 untraded and 27 others suspended.
As at 12.30 pm, turnover stood at 1.00 billion units worth RM1.01 billion against 1.60 billion units worth RM1.55 billion recorded at 5 pm yesterday.
A dealer said Bursa Malaysia took cue from the negative overnight performance on Nasdaq, which saw technology stocks such as Alphabet, Facebook and Amazon.com tumbled on fears the companies were the targets of US government antitrust regulators.
“Hence, this influenced sentiment in our telcos,” he told Bernama, citing concerns over global trade war continuing to weigh on demand.
He also said weak local participation, as most of investors had left for the Hari Raya Aidilfitri holidays, also contributed to the day’s weak interest.
Among other heavyweights, Maybank shed two sen to RM8.97, Public Bank contracted 12 sen to RM23.42, Tenaga lost four sen to RM12.82, and Petronas Chemicals erased six sen to RM8.28.
However, CIMB rose three sen to RM5.32.
Of the actively-traded stocks, Lambo inched up half-a-sen to six sen, Sapura Energy and Ekovest added one sen each to 30 sen and 77.5 sen, while Bumi Armada was flat at 20 sen.