Friday 29 Mar 2024
By
main news image

KUALA LUMPUR (March 24):The FBM KLCI fell 1.25 points or 0.07% on the selldown of index-linked counters Sime Darby Bhd and YTL Corp Bhd, while retreating from the excitement of Alibaba Group chairman Jack Ma’s business plans for Malaysia, which boosted the stocks of small and medium-sized companies.

The benchmark index closed lower for the second straight day at 1,745.75

“The market has been trading at an unsustainably high volume that peaked to six billion shares early this week. It is timely that it corrects itself to a usual level,” Inter-Pacific Securities Sdn Bhd head of research Pong Teng Siew told theedgemarkets.com.

KAF Investment Fund Bhd chief investment officer Gan Kong Yik is also of the view that the market is taking a breather after recent gains.

“Year-to-date, investors are on the profit-taking trail,” said Gan. “There is a rotational play in the system, with some laggards and undervalued stocks that have yet to be emerge. Hopefully, next week will be a good week for the market.”

The broader market saw some 3.7 billion shares worth RM2.53 billion traded, giving the market a total capitalisation of RM1.8 trillion.

Decliners outpaced gainers by 590 counters to 312. Aeon Credit Service (M) Bhd was the top loser, while the top gainer was Malaysian Pacific Industries Bhd.

ACE-listed EA Holdings Bhd was the most actively traded counter, with 153.19 million shares — equivalent to 10.3% of its share capital — traded.

“It’s an ACE Market day today. They are all enjoying potential spillover effect from the recently-concluded Global Transformation Forum in Kuala Lumpur yesterday,” a trader with a bank-backed stockbroker said.

Elsewhere in Asia, Japan’s Nikkei225, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng and China’s CSI indices rose by 0.93%, 0.13% and 0.8% . This pushed the MSCI Asia Pacific index to close 0.13% up.

      Print
      Text Size
      Share