KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 22 ― Bursa Malaysia ended the morning trading session lower as profit-taking activities emerged in selected heavyweights, tracking the weaker performance on Wall Street overnight.

At 12.30pm, the FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) fell 8.44 points to 1,454.96 from yesterday’s closing of 1,463.40.

The barometer index opened 2.81 points lower at 1,460.59 ― its highest level this morning ― before moving to a low of 1,454.52 prior to lunch break.

The market breadth was negative, with decliners leading gainers 476 to 287, while 423 counters were unchanged, 1,188 untraded and 10 others suspended.

Turnover amounted to 1.73 billion units valued at RM1.01 billion.

Malacca Securities Sdn Bhd in a note said investors were taking profits on Wall Street after the US Federal Open Market Committee meeting minutes indicated a cautious approach to managing the interest rates going forward.

"We expect the profit-taking actions could spill over towards stocks on the local front," it said.

Among the heavyweight counters, Maybank and Public Bank eased one sen to RM9.10 and RM4.26 respectively, CIMB lost three sen to RM5.76, Petronas Chemicals dropped 14 sen to RM7.24, and Tenaga gave up four sen to RM9.98.

Of the actives, Capital A rose three sen to 86.5 sen, Widad and Leform put on half-a-sen each to 46.5 sen and 27 sen, respectively, Top Glove gained two sen to 83 sen, and Bahvest inched down two sen to 51 sen.

On the index board, the FBM Emas Index declined 46.63 points to 10,783.38, the FBMT 100 Index gave up 45.72 points to 10,442.82, and the FBM Emas Shariah Index slipped 59.03 points to 10,979.26.

The FBM ACE Index fell 17.27 points to 5,191.11 while the FBM 70 Index gained 1.65 points to 14,367.49.

Sector-wise, the Financial Services Index slid 42.23 points to 16,381.50, the Energy Index shed 5.46 points to 858.29, the Plantation Index was 39.39 points weaker at 6,976.69 and the Industrial Products and Services Index slipped 2.27 points to 173.76. ― Bernama