KUALA LUMPUR: Bursa Malaysia cooled following six days of gains as investors moved to take profits.
The FBM KLCI fell 2.64 points, or 0.17% to 1,512.75 after moving between its intraday high of 1,520.31 and low of 1,511.84.
Sellers led buyers by 622 to 383, while 459 counters traded unchanged. Volume was 3.77 billion shares, valued at RM2.64bil.
Funds flow-wise, foreigners (-RM96mil) and local retailers (-RM1mil) were the major net sellers whilst local institutions acquired RM97mil shares on Monday.
Dealers said a bout of profit-taking sent many stocks lower today, with losses of between 5% and 10% a common occurrence. They added that the performance of our local bourse was also bogged down by selling interest in IHH Healthcare and Press Metal.
Among the losers on Bursa Malaysia, Heineken slid RM1.16 to RM24.74, Malaysian Pacific Industries lost RM1.04 to RM28 and Rapid fell 41 sen to RM1.33.
F&N jumped 38 sen to RM27.90, YTL Power rose 25 sen to RM4.20, Amway added 19 sen to RM6.83 and Vitrox gained 15 sen to RM7.
Among the key regional markets:
Japan’s Nikkei 225 closed up 0.11% to 36,065.86;
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index fell 2.32% to 15,703.45;
Shanghai Composite Index declined 1.83% to 2,830.53;
Taiwan’s Taiex fell 0.47% to 18,034.63;
South Korea’s Kospi closed down 0.07% to 2,498.81 and;
Singapore’s Straits Times Index rose 0.25% to 3,148.09 points.