KUALA LUMPUR: Bursa Malaysia remained under selling pressure for the third straight session on Thursday as investors’ sentiment stayed cautious.
At 5pm, the FBM KLCI closed down 12.03 points, or 0.81% to 1,479.18 as YTL Corp, YTL Power, CIMB Group
and Public Bank weighed.
Market breadth was negative as losers overpowered the gainers on a ratio of 885-to-218 stocks. A total of 6.09 billion shares changed hands, worth RM3.6bil in all.
Dealers expect trading on Bursa Malaysia to continue to be cautious with several companies hitting limit-down in the past trading sessions.
Malacca Securities expects the ongoing theme on the KL-SG HSR, coupled with the Johor-region catalysts may be the winners for 2024, thus trading activities could focus on the construction, property, and building material as well as the utility companies at least for the near term.
The research house likes the defensive consumer sector as it thinks the overall consumption is stable and growing at this juncture.
Among the component stocks, YTL Corp slid 19 sen, or 8.19% to RM2.13, and single-handedly took 2.9825 points off the FBM KLCI.
YTL Power fell 21 sen to RM3.57, dragging the index lower by 2.4397 points.
Among the banks, CIMB slid nine sen to RM5.94, Public Bank lost four sen to RM4.31, Maybank fell three sen to RM9.02 and RHB Bank declined one sen to RM5.54.
Hong Leong Bank gained 14 sen to RM18.84 while AmBank added one sen to RM4.24.
A few companies hit limit-down today. Silver Ridge lost 35.5 sen, 29.58% to 84.5 sen with 13.99 million shares done.
Widad fell 30 sen, or 61.22% to 19 sen while Jentayu Sustainables slid 34 sen, or 29.82% to 80 sen.
Among the gainers on Bursa Malaysia, PBA jumped 23 sen or 10.04% to RM2.53, United Plantations gained 20 sen to RM19.50 and Hume Cement Industries added 13 sen to RM2.74.
Meanwhile, the ringgit was quoted at 4.7175 against the greenback, down 0.01%.
The local currency was down 0.07% against the euro at 5.1348. It fell 0.08% against the pound sterling at 5.9872 and fell 0.01% against the Singapore dollar at 3.5106.
Among the key regional markets:
Japan’s Nikkei 225 closed down 0.03% to 35,466.17;
South Korea’s Kospi advanced 0.17% to 2,440.04;
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index rose 0.75% to 15,391.79;
Shanghai Composite Index added 0.43% to 2,845.78;
Taiwan’s Taiex gained 0.4% to 17,227.79 and;
Singapore’s Straits Times Index fell 0.08% to 3,139.78 points.
