KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 21 — Bursa Malaysia remained lower at mid-morning as investors reacted cautiously to the hung Parliament outcome of the 15th General Elections (GE15), with selling across the board.

At 11.02am, the benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) lost 9.5 points to 1,439.82 from Thursday’s close at 1,449.32.

On the broader market, decliners outnumbered advancers 553 to 212, while 289 counters were unchanged, 1,278 untraded, and 48 others suspended.

Turnover stood at 1.91 billion units valued at RM1.02 billion.

MIDF Amanah Investment Bank Bhd said a cautious mood prevails as various political parties are busy trying to form a majority coalition to be presented to the Yang di-Pertuan Agong by 2pm today.

"While we are equally hopeful that this process would end quickly, we cannot rule out the possibility that it may take days or even weeks to conclude.

"In the meantime, we expect the equity market to react adversely to this situation with a negative kneejerk reaction, pulling the FBM KLCI lower and possibly breaching its psychological support level of 1,400 points,” it said in a note today.

However, the research house expects the market to duly recover once a new government is formed.

The strength of the relief rebound would, nevertheless, be dependent on how stable the new coalition government is perceived by the market, it said.

At this juncture, MIDF is keeping its FBM KLCI 2022 year-end target at 1,520 points.

Heavyweight stocks such as Maybank slipped one sen to RM8.55, IHH Healthcare eased two sen to RM5.95, and Tenaga lost nine sen to RM8.29. CIMB rose four sen to RM5.45 while Public Bank and Petronas Chemicals were flat at RM4.31 and RM8.62, respectively.

Among the actives, Advance Synergy widened four sen to 16.5 sen, Dagang Nexchange rallied 7.5 sen to 58 sen and Malayan United added one sen to 10 sen. Eden bagged three sen to 20 sen while Genting trimmed 15 sen to RM2.56.

On the index board, the FBM Emas Shariah Index declined 64.65 points to 10,334.11, the FBM Emas Index contracted 69.12 points to 10,210.12 and the FBM ACE slid 15.51 points to 4,899.41. The FBMT100 Index fell 62.63 points to 9,948.18, and the FBM 70 dropped 64.01 points to 12,095.49.

Sector-wise, the Plantation Index was 78.62 points lower at 6,801.61, the Energy Index was reduced by 7.17 points to 716.16, and the Industrial Products and Services Index inched down 1.3 points to 177.3. The Financial Services Index lost 27.34 points to 16,148.46. — Bernama