By Aishah Mohmad Afandi
KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 24 (NNN-BERNAMA) — The Malaysian bourse continued to come under pressure amid uncertainties over the country’s political landscape, dragging the benchmark index to its lowest level since December 2011.
At lunch break, the FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) declined 2.54 per cent or 38.94 points compared with Friday’s close of 1,531.20.
The index opened at 1,501.47 and hovered between 1,491.20 to 1,510.42 throughout the morning session.
Across the board, all indices were negative with construction counters emerging as the biggest decliner shedding 5.72 per cent, as the latest political development in the country left many unanswered questions over the current and future projects by the government.
Since morning, shares belonging to government-linked companies took the strongest hit with utility giant, Tenaga Nasional leading the decliners by losing 42 sen to RM12.36, while Maybank lost 20 sen to RM8.21 and CIMB Group decreased 18 sen to RM4.82.
Meanwhile, Petronas-linked stocks such as Petronas Chemicals shed 20 sen to RM6.25 and Petronas Dagangan weakened 20 sen to RM21.80, MISC lost 45 sen to RM7.24 and telecommunication stock Axiata erased 20 sen to RM4.05.
Public Bank was the biggest loser after shedding 66 sen to RM17.56.
The decline in these stocks had collectively dragged the composite index down by 25.95 points.
An analyst said the FBM KLCI is expected to continue its downtrend and test the 1,480 benchmarks if political uncertainties remain by the end of the day.
“Various quarters are holding meetings at various places. However, it is still unclear on what the outcome would be at the end of the day.
“Hence, we expect a withdrawal from the local equities market especially on counters with government links,” she told Bernama.
On the scoreboard, losers outpaced gainers 959 to 111, with 167 unchanged, 762 untraded and 22 suspended.
Total volume was at 2.35 billion with the value of RM2.11 billion.
Meanwhile, consumer products recorded the biggest loss, with Dutchlady declining RM1.22 to RM44.56, Heineken dropping RM3.04 to RM28.00 and Carlsberg erasing RM4.14 to RM34.80.
As for the actives, MyEG continued its downtrend, losing 13 sen to RM1.17, while Alam Maritim declined one sen to 13 sen and Bumi Armada weakened 2.5 sen to 37.5 sen.
On the index board, the FBM Emas Index slipped 306.69 points to 10,658.92, the FBMT 100 Index declined 294.94 points to 10,452.17 and FBM Ace shed 127.42 points to 5,629.50.
The FBM Emas Shariah Index gave up 310.89 points to 11,346.37 and FBM 70 dipped 469.42 points to 13,412.37.
Sector-wise, the Industrial Products and Services Index eased 3.37 points to 142.42, the Financial Services Index shed 376.31 points to 14,319.61 and the Plantation Index weakened 215.21 points to 6,919.44.
— NNN-BERNAMA