KUALA LUMPUR, March 31 ― The key index fell below the 1,600-level at mid-morning, weighed down by glove stocks and fragile sentiment on the back of weak Wall Street performance overnight.
At 11.05am, the benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) shed 22.10 points to 1,587.09 from yesterday's close of 1,609.19.
The index opened 0.23 of-a-point easier at 1,608.96.
On the broader market, losers thumped gainers 656 to 256, while 369 counters were unchanged, 920 untraded and 86 others suspended.
Total volume stood at 3.22 billion shares worth RM1.30 billion.
Among the glove stocks, Top Glove lost 31 sen to RM4.47, Hartalega slipped 35 sen to RM9.01 and Supermax went down 10 sen to RM3.85.
Of the other heavyweights, Hong Leong Bank rose two sen to RM18.82, Maybank slid nine sen to RM8.31, Petronas Chemicals was one sen easier to RM8.09, TNB decreased 18 sen to RM10.22, IHH Healthcare gave up nine sen to RM5.34 and CIMB eased four sen to RM4.42
As for the active counters, Berjaya Corp rose two sen to 41.5 sen and Widad added one sen to 59.5 sen, while Fintec, AT Systematization and TA Win all edged down half-a-sen to six sen, 10 sen and 42.5 sen, respectively.
On the index board, the FBM Emas Index weakened 139.13 points to 11,683.64, the FBM 70 decreased 128.96 points to 15,473.41, the FBMT 100 went down 141.5 points to 11,353.54, the FBM ACE gave up 83.72 points to 10,149.17, and the FBM Emas Shariah slipped 174.47 points to 12,914.92.
Sector-wise, the Financial Services Index dropped 120.33 points to 15,338.58, the Plantation Index was 41.29 points lower to 7,093.38, and the Industrial Products and Services Index fell 1.24 points to 192.29. ― Bernama
