KUALA LUMPUR (Dec 5): The FBM KLCI has tumbled some 71.77 points week-on-week as at the midday break on Friday despite edging up to close the morning session higher.

At 12.30pm, the FBM KLCI was up 3.43 points to 1,749.12, lifted by select blue chips including Tenaga Nasional Bhd and Public Bank Bhd. The index had earlier fallen to its intra-morning low of 1,740.56.

However, market breadth remained weak with decliners outpacing advancers by 368 to 268, while 279 counters traded unchanged. Volume was 622.71 million shares valued at RM669.05 million.

The top gainers included Petronas Dagangan Bhd, Dutch Lady Milk Industries Bhd, Tenaga Nasional Bhd, Public Bank, Carlsberg, Faber Group Bhd and Success Transformer Corporation Bhd.

The actively traded counters included Sumatec Resources Bhd, Dialog Group Bhd, Malaysian Airline System Bhd, Technodex Bhd, Perisai Petroleum Teknologi Bhd, Tiger Synergy Bhd and Bumi Armada Bhd.

The losers included British American Tobacco (M) Bhd, Kuala Lumpur Kepong Bhd, Nestle (M) Bhd, APM Automotive Bhd, Aeon Credit Services (M) Bhd, Asia Brands Bhd and UMW Holdings Bhd.

Regionally, Asian shares drifted while the dollar marked time on Friday ahead of the key U.S. jobs report later in the session that could help it retake ground lost to the euro overnight, according to Reuters.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was down 0.1 percent, on track for a weekly loss of 0.8 percent. Japan's Nikkei stock average slipped 0.2 percent, but was on track for a weekly gain of more than 2 percent, it said.

BIMB Securities Research said Asian markets improved yesterday on expectations of additional stimulus from the ECB.

It said that locally, the FBM KLCI continued its slide to end the day at 1,745.69, down 12.46 points.

It said the local bourse had been extremely weak, attributable to persistent selling by the foreign funds with another net outflow of RM172.3 million yesterday.

“Over the last 4 trading days, net foreign outflow had totalled RM522.8 million with the benchmark index losing 75.2 points or 4.1%.

“We attribute the weakness to the recent spate of earnings downgrade which saw our 2014 earnings growth forecast at -0.6%.

“The immediate support level is seen at around the 1,730 level, but we expect buying to emerge soon as the market is oversold at the moment,” it said.