Rakuten Trade Sdn Bhd vice-president of equity research Thong Pak Leng sees the recent decline as an opportunity to bargain-hunt, citing more attractive valuations at lower levels.
“With the benchmark consolidating around the 1,740 level, maintaining a firm hold above the 1,730–1,740 range would keep the upward bias intact and support further gains,” he told Bernama.
IPPFA Sdn Bhd director of investment strategy and country economist Sedek Jantan said weakness continued to be driven by heavyweight financial stocks as institutional investors engaged in post-earnings profit-taking.
“Given that banks account for about 44% of the total index weightage across six constituents, repositioning within the sector exerted an outsized drag on overall index performance,” he said.
At 5pm, the FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) eased 6.87 points, or 0.39%, to 1,740.94, compared with yesterday’s close of 1,747.81.
The benchmark index had opened 1.62 points higher at 1,749.43, and moved between 1,726.92 and 1,749.43 throughout the trading session.
The broader market was negative, with decliners outpacing gainers 746 to 367, while 520 counters were unchanged.
A total of 1,136 counters were untraded and 165 suspended.
Turnover rose to 2.98 billion units worth RM4.07 billion compared to 2.52 billion units worth RM2.93 billion yesterday.
Among heavyweight counters, Maybank fell 36 sen to RM12, Public Bank gained five sen to RM5, CIMB Group eased one sen to RM8.46, Tenaga Nasional was flat at RM14.18, and IHH Healthcare added two sen to RM9.02.
On the most active list, Aquawalk shed 7.5 sen to 28.5 sen, Zetrix AI slid 0.5 sen to 80 sen, Tanco was flat at RM1.53, Nationgate slid 11.5 sen to 89.5 sen, and Capital A slipped 1.5 sen to 59 sen.
Top gainers included Sunway Construction, which jumped 35 sen to RM7.25, Petronas Dagangan rose 32 sen to RM22.28, Nestle gained 30 sen to RM110.80, Allianz Malaysia added 22 sen to RM22.30 and Malaysian Pacific Industries advanced 14 sen to RM32.14.
Top losers included Dutch Lady, which dropped 88 sen to RM32.20, Telekom Malaysia fell 29 sen to RM7.46, Amway declined 26 sen to RM5.11, Hong Leong Bank lost 20 sen to RM23.84, and Fraser & Neave slipped 18 sen to RM33.50.
On the index board, the FBM Emas Index declined 55 points to 12,768.60, the FBMT 100 Index fell 49.86 points to 12,594.31, the FBM Emas Shariah Index eased 33.06 points to 12,311.71, the FBM 70 Index shed 70.83 points to 17,698.25, and the FBM ACE Index dropped 37.40 points to 4,764.55.
By sector, the financial services index slipped 164.79 points to 21,466.34, the industrial products and services index edged up 0.38 of-a-point to 175.34, the energy index declined 10.27 points to 759.46, and the plantation index eased 35.14 points to 8,351.55.
The Main Market volume added to 1.82 billion units worth RM3.82 billion from 1.44 billion units worth RM2.67 billion yesterday.
Warrants turnover rose to 707.3 million units worth RM87.39 million from 628.7 million units worth RM75.1 million previously.
The ACE Market volume gained to 459.82 million units valued at RM163.6 million from 446.38 million units valued at RM179.65 million yesterday.
Consumer products and services counters accounted for 328 million shares traded on the Main Market, industrial products and services (309.17 million), construction (150.06 million), technology (269.36 million), financial services (190.53 million), property (163.45 million), plantation (37.72 million), real estate investment trusts (25.33 million), closed-end fund (12,900), energy (86.81 million), healthcare (79.11 million), telecommunications and media (100.53 million), transportation and logistics (39.03 million), utilities (37.53 million) and business trusts (500,100).