Broadly lower on heavy profit-taking

Share prices on Bursa Malaysia retreated from a year's high on Tuesday to end broadly lower yesterday due to heavy profit-taking after recent gains, dealers said.

Continous selling activities across the board pushed the FTSE Bursa Malaysia Kuala Lumpur Composite Index (FBM KLCI) to 1,260.06, down 5.68 points, or 0.449 per cent.

A technical analyst said the market was on a short-term correction mode after recent gains over the last two weeks, with the FBM KLCI sustaining at the 1,250 point level. The resistance level is expected to be at 1,250 with support areas located at 1,230.

"The downtrend is in line with the softer regional bourses following the overnight losses on Wall Street due to profit-taking activities," said MIMB Investment Bank's technical analyst Mohd Nazri Khan.

Mohd Nazri said the bull market was just getting started in view of the United States and China's promising economic outlook as well as optimism on world economic recovery to drive buying sentiment in the market.

"The local market is heading towards 1,525 in the next two years," he added.

The FBM Emas Index fell 41.851 points to 8,471.64, the FBM Top 100 decreased 42.641 points to 8,256.93, the FBM 70 lost 64.45 points to 8,340.54 and the FBM ACE Index declined 41.59 points to 4,348.28.

The Finance Index shed 28.66 points to 10,712.02, the Plantation Index fell 34.22 points to 6,181 and the Industrial Index went down 12.71 points to 2,669.62.

Losers outpaced gainers by 519 to 214 while 219 counters were unchanged and 320 untraded.

Total turnover decreased to 926.199 million shares valued at RM1.271 from 1.236 billion shares worth RM1.545 billion.

The most active stock was Metronic Global, which ended 1.5 sen sen lower at 11 sen with 705,178 lots changing hands.

Other active stocks were KNM which was down 2.5 sen to 83.5 sen while Ogawa World declined 2 sen to 37.5 sen but Johan Holdings added 3 sen to 33 sen.

Among the heavyweights, Sime Darby was flat at RM8.79, Maybank declined 8 sen to RM6.90, CIMB was flat at RM12.62 and Tenaga Nasional fell 3 sen to RM8.48.

FBM KLCI futures ended lower in line with the weak cash market on profit-taking activity, dealers said.

October 2009 contract fell 11 points to 1,260, November 2009 declined 9 points to 1,261.5, December 2009 decreased 11 points to 1,260 and March 2010 was down 12.5 points to 1,260. Turnover rose to 5,438 lots from 4,525 lots while open interests rose to 17,136 contracts from 16,498 contracts previously. - Bernama