| BURSA MALAYSIA: Share Prices End Lower, KLCI Down 9.5 Percent |
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KUALA LUMPUR, March 10 (Bernama) -- Share prices on Bursa Malaysia ended lower today following the victory of the ruling Barisan Nasional party by a simple majority in Saturday's general election, dealers said.
The benchmark Kuala Lumpur Composite Index (KLCI) closed at 1,173.22, down 123.11 points or 9.50 percent.
According to Alliance Investment Bank, the fall was a knee-jerk reaction to the unexpected polling results and "it was expected".
"But we did not expect such huge drop. The market over-reacted," said its assistant vice president, senior institutional sales, Shahrul Kamal Ramli.
Trading on the bourse was halted after 28 minutes of afternoon trading with the KLCI falling by 10.03 percent or 130.01 points to 1,166.32.
It re-opened at 1,159.69, losing 136.64 points after trading resumed an hour later. In response to the trading halt, the Securities Commission and Bursa Malaysia assured the public that market integrity remained intact despite activation of the circuit breaker.
This, they said in a joint statement, has not impeded the resilience of the market. During the trading session, the KLCI which opened 53.69 points lower at 1,242.64 this morning, moved between 1,257.47 and 1,242.64.
At the closing, the Industrial Index fell 261.47 points to 2,486.07, the Plantation Index dropped 694.12 points to 7,041.23 and the Finance Index declined 769.38 points to 9,081.04.
The FBMEmas Index was 831.81 points lower at 7,962.91, the FBM30 lost 826.81 points to 7,743.62, the FBM2BRD decreased 449.56 points to 5,644.85 and the FBMMesdaq went down 337.47 points to 4,564.48.
Losers outnumbered gainers 905 to 26 while 62 counters were unchanged, 434 untraded and 27 suspended.
Overall volume was higher at 1.181 billion shares valued RM3.208 billion compared to last Friday's closing of 686.962 million shares worth RM1.286 billion.
Shahrul Kamal said that share prices were mostly back to the August 2007 level.
According to him, external weaknesses also contributed to the fall as investors regionally were concerned over subprime issues in the United States.
He said major Asian markets were on the downtrend with the Hang Seng Index and Nikkei Index down by another two percent from last week.
The US, the world's richest economy, was heading into a recession though it recorded a positive growth but below one percent in the latest economic data, some economists said.
US employers had cut 63,000 jobs last month, the highest since March 2003. The unemployment rate fell to 4.8 percent, indicating that people were leaving the labour force.
On Bursa Malaysia, MRCB was the most actively traded stock, falling into limit-down area, losing 66 sen to RM1.27 with 847,658 lots changing hands.
It was followed by Gamuda which dropped 60 sen to RM2.94 and Tenaga Nasional which went down RM1.30 to RM7.35.
Among the heavyweights, Sime Darby lost RM1.60 to RM9.40, Maybank declined 50 sen to RM8.45 and IOI Corp fell 75 sen to RM6.65 Some 60 counters fell into limit-down territory, led by Cybertowers which was eight sen or 57.14 percent lower at six sen, Kumpulan Peransang Selangor which went down RM1.74 or 50.88 percent to RM1.68 sen and Equine Capital which lost 72 sen or 50.35 percent to 71 sen.
Volume on the Main Board rose to 958.626 million shares worth RM3.151 billion from last Friday's 390.865 million shares valued at RM1.224 billion.
Turnover on the Second Board increased to 58.463 million shares worth RM32.874 million from 53.934 million shares valued at RM27.891 million previously.
The Mesdaq Market's volume fell to 67.730 million shares worth RM17.944 million from 78.072 million shares worth RM21.64 million last Friday.
Call warrants' volume dropped to 96.498 million shares valued at RM5.790 million from 164.088 million shares worth RM13.104 million previously.
Direct business deals were higher at 15.021 million shares valued at RM34.413 million compared to 10.016 million shares worth RM14.689 million last Friday.
On a sectoral basis, consumer products accounted for 11.989 million shares traded on the Main Board, industrial products 74.886 million, construction 211.659 million, trade and services 314.464 million, technology 10.312 million, infrastructure 31.332 million, finance 108.979 million, hotels 2.552 million, properties 76.874 million, plantations 60.262 million, mining 58,000, REITs 2.045 million, closed/fund 355,500, ETF 508,100, and loans 52.347 million.
-- BERNAMA
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