KUALA LUMPUR: The market kicked off the new week on a softer note on April 20 as investors locked in recent gains, in line with the regional markets, while Bursa was among the major decliners.

At 10am, the KLCI was down 7.19 points to 957.98. Turnover was 164.45 million shares valued at RM152.16. There were 83 gainers, 264 losers and 110 counters unchanged.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index opened 0.5% down to 15,516.60, Singapore’s Straits Times Index fell 1.26% to 1,872.73 while Japan’s Nikkei 225 lost 0.94% to 8,824.19.

This comes after the KLCI added 23.8 point or 2.5% last week, up for the fifth successive week for a cumulative gain of 121.7-points or 14.4%.

“An imminent market correction ought to be on the cards as profit-taking activity looms ahead. After testing momentarily 970 last week before backing off, we see little immediate upside potential in the KLCI, which will likely peak (or would have already peaked) somewhere between its first and second resistance levels of 970 and 1,000,” it said.

Citigroup said it had a Sell call on IOI Corp and KL Kepong from a Buy call previously. It reduced KLK’s price target to RM11 and IOI Corp at RM4.26, which were 19% and 11.6% respectively. The research house said the crude palm oil rally was unsustainable.

BAT fell 50 sen to RM45.50, TAHPS 43 sen to RM2.91 and YTL-WB 23 sen lower to RM2.63 while MISC gave up 20 sen to RM8.35. Other decliners were SP Setia, down 12 sen to RM3.28 and Kulim-WB 10 sen to RM2.84.

Bursa fell 25 sen to RM5.95 with 1.13 million shares done, HLFG 18 sen to RM4.92, Public Bank foreign 15 sen to RM8.40.

KNM was the most active with 26.1 million shares done, down 0.5 sen to 52.5 sen.

However, Axiata-OR rose 0.5 sen to 61 sen and Axiata one sen to RM1.84. DRB-Hicom added 4.5 sen to 90 sen.

Amway was the top gainer, adding 20 sen to RM7.50, Aeon Credit 19 sen to RM2.92, YLI 12 sen to 73 sen while Proton advanced 10 sen to Rm2.75. Batu Kawan and KL Kepong rose 10 sen each to RM8.35 and RM11.30.