KUALA LUMPUR: Bursa Malaysia has retracted to negative territory at midday despite opening marginally higher. 

At 12.30pm, FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI dropped 0.04 per cent or 0.63 points to 1,456.78 versus Thursday's close of 1,457.41. 

The benchmark index, which opened at 1,457.57, moved between 1,455.90 and 1,461.40 in the morning trading session. 

The broader market saw losers led gainers 429 to 342 while 440 counters were unchanged. About 2.64 billion shares changed hands before trading paused at lunch break.

FBM100 lost 0.01 per cent to 10,502.30, FBM Emas shed 0.02 per cent to 10,841.05 while FBM Ace added 0.27 per cent to 5,286.02. 

Among the actives were Green Ocean Corp Bhd which added 68 per cent or 8.5 sen to 21 sen and Dataprep Holdings Bhd which rose 16.13 per cent or 2.5 sen to 18 sen. 

On the losing end were Pelikan International Corp Bhd which was down by 8.96 per cent or three sen to 30.5 sen while Sarawak Cable Bhd lost 5.0 per cent or two sen to 38 sen.