KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 6 — Bursa Malaysia erased earlier gains to close marginally lower today at its intraday low due to profit-taking activities, particularly in financial services stocks, in the last 10 minutes of trading, a dealer said.

At 5pm, the benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) trimmed 1.53 points or 0.10 per cent to 1,488.27 from yesterday’s close of 1,489.80.

The benchmark index opened 2.78 points firmer at 1,492.58 and moved between 1,488.27 and 1,497.00 throughout the trading session.

However, on the broader market, advancers led decliners 470 to 348, while 424 counters were unchanged, 1,032 untraded and seven others suspended.

Total turnover expanded to 2.19 billion units worth RM1.65 billion from 2.08 billion units worth RM1.25 billion last Friday.

Despite the fall, Rakuten Trade Sdn Bhd vice-president of equity research Thong Pak Leng said key regional bourses closed higher after China pledged to make renewed efforts to boost its economy.

"Meanwhile foreign fund investments continued to flow into the region as prices of commodities, especially that of crude oil and crude palm oil have fallen in recent weeks, easing worries over inflation and supporting views that central banks will go easy with interest rate hikes,” he told Bernama.

Back home, he believed bargain hunting would emerge given the cheap valuations while foreign funds are flowing into the region, hence the spillover effect would be positive for local equities.

"As such, we anticipate the benchmark index to trend within the 1,480-1,500 range for the remainder of the week,” he said.

From a technical point of view, he reckoned immediate support at 1,470 with resistance at 1,500.

Bursa heavyweights Maybank shed four sen to RM8.90, Public Bank slid one sen to RM4.66, CIMB lost two sen to RM5.46, IHH Healthcare fell five sen to RM6.15, while Petronas Chemicals gained 17 sen to RM8.99.

Of the actives, both Metronic and Sanichi were unchanged at 7.5 sen and 2.5 sen respectively, MYEG added 2.5 sen to 83.5 sen, while Jade Marvel lost two sen to 27 sen and South Malaysia Industries was 7.5 sen down at 18 sen.

On the index board, the FBM Emas Index added 15.13 points to 10,568.90, the FBMT 100 Index firmed 9.51 points to 10,317.54, the FBM ACE edged up 40.24 points to 4,800.39, the FBM Emas Shariah Index increased 38.11 points to 10,634.05 and the FBM 70 rose 92.75 points to 12,683.23.

Sector-wise, the Plantation Index was 27.73 points better at 7,029.31, the Industrial Products and Services Index firmed 2.36 points to 183.63, the Energy Index grew 20.71 points to 721.44, while the Financial Services Index shrank 35.93 points to 16,734.89.

The Main Market volume perked to 1.32 billion shares worth RM1.38 billion from 1.13 billion shares worth RM996.74 million yesterday.

Warrants turnover fell to 253.12 million units valued at RM38.21 million from 258.23 million units valued at RM42.74 million previously.

The ACE Market volume decreased to 612.76 million shares worth RM238.73 million from 694.60 million shares worth RM212.10 million yesterday.

Consumer products and services counters accounted for 149.15 million shares traded on the Main Market, industrial products and services (473.92 million), construction (43.52 million), technology (164.62 million), SPAC (nil), financial services (43.96 million), property (138.84 million), plantation (16.96 million), REITs (3.64 million), closed/fund (nil), energy (132.29 million), healthcare (77.86 million), telecommunications and media (22.68 million), transportation and logistics (37.06 million), and utilities (16.32 million). — Bernama