KUALA LUMPUR: Indecision over the outlook of global interest rates in the coming year have equities markets staying cautious and travelling on a horizontal channel.
Bursa Malaysia has taken on a profit-taking mood as investors cashed in on strong gains from earlier on the month.
The FBM KLCI resumed its descent on Thursday, halting for the lunch break 3.37 points lower at 1,452.52 points.
The market breadth was negative with 473 decliners compared to 304 gainers, while trading volume was 2.16 billion shares valued at RM1.01bil.
PETRONAS Chemicals led the blue chops lower, dropping nine sen to RM7.16 while IHH slipped four sen to RM5.83 and CelcomDigi shed three sen to RM4.19.
There remains a raft of corporate earnings results to be released over the days, not least that of heavyweight banks including Public Bank, which fell one sen to RM4,26; CIMB, which dropped three sen to RM5.74; and Hong Leong Bank, falling 12 sen to RM19.08.
Some notable decliners over the morning session included Pertama Digital falling 36 sen to RM2.89, Batu Kawan shedding 20 sen to RM20.30 and Coastal Contracts
diving 19 sen to RM1.75.
Top actives include F&N up 36 sen to RM27.36, Allianz rising 30 sen to RM17.90 and SAM Engineering gaining 14 sen to RM4.35.
