KUALA LUMPUR, April 28 — Bursa Malaysia ended the shortened trading week marginally lower today as investors sold financial services and plantation blue chips ahead of another shortened trading period next week, bucking the mainly positive regional trend.

Malaysia has public holidays on Monday and Thursday next week.

At 5pm, the FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) eased 2.10 points to 1,415.95 from Thursday’s close of 1,418.05.

The barometer index opened 0.19 of a point better at 1,418.24 and moved between 1,412.84 and 1,420.50 throughout the day.

The market breadth was negative with decliners leading gainers 427 to 398, while 414 counters were unchanged, 1,040 untraded and 50 others suspended.

Turnover rose to 2.64 billion units valued at RM1.48 billion from 2.49 billion units valued at RM1.46 billion yesterday.

Rakuten Trade Sdn Bhd equity research vice-president Thong Pak Leng told Bernama the FBM KLCI closed marginally lower after a bumpy trading session.

"(However), key regional indices trended higher following strong gains on Wall Street overnight on strong corporate earnings,” he noted.

Regionally, Japan’s Nikkei rose 1.4 per cent to 28,856.44, South Korea’s Kospi gained 0.23 per cent to 2,501.53 and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng bagged 0.27 per cent to 19,894.57.

China’s composite index increased 1.14 per cent to 3,323.27.

Among the heavyweight counters, Maybank erased four sen to RM8.66 and CIMB fell one sen to RM5.06 while Public Bank and CelcomDigi were flat at RM3.89 and RM4.40 respectively.

Petronas Chemicals rose four sen to RM7.08.

As for the actives, Jade Marvel was half-a-sen lower at 27.5 sen, Komarkcorp slid 2.5 sen to nine sen while Vinvest inched up half-a-sen to 20.5 sen.

Velesto and Bintai Kinden were both flat at 23 sen and 3.5 sen, respectively.

On the index board, the FBM Emas Index erased 15.43 points to 10,396.39, the FBMT 100 Index deducted 14.51 points to 10,080.22 and the FBM Emas Shariah Index lost 12.19 points to 10,736.79.

The FBM ACE Index was 15.98 points higher at 5,368.38 while the FBM 70 index dropped 17.65 points to 13,522.58.

Sector-wise, the Industrial Products and Services Index inched up 0.59 of a point to 171.45, the Energy Index went up 0.03 of a point to 847.37 and the Financial Services Index fell 40.50 points to 15,519.53.

The Plantation Index was 38.29 points weaker at 6,817.38.

The Main Market volume increased to 1.78 billion units valued at RM1.25 billion from 1.66 billion units valued at RM1.21 billion yesterday.

Warrant turnover strengthened to 235.24 million units worth RM46.98 million against 185.13 million units worth RM36.12 million previously.

The ACE Market volume dropped to 624.27 million shares worth RM183.73 million versus 651.76 million shares worth RM206.91 million yesterday.

Consumer products and services counters accounted for 275.84 million shares traded on the Main Market, industrial products and services (629.28 million); construction (64.44 million); technology (187.51 million); SPAC (nil), financial services (54.13 million); property (255.41 million); plantation (17.65 million); REITs (5.27 million), closed/fund (1,500); energy (114.59 million); healthcare (82.11 million); telecommunications and media (46.37 million); transportation and logistics (29.58 million); and utilities (20.63 million). — Bernama