KUALA LUMPUR: The FBM KLCI closed in the red on Wednesday in line with the insipid performance of its regional peers.

At 5pm, the 30-stock index was down 5.14 points to 1,775.57. The benchmark index opened 0.40 of-a-point lower at 1,780.31. The market traded within a range of 8.43 points between an intra-day high of 1,782.09 and a low of 1,773.66 during the session.

Market breadth was negative with decliners outpacing advancers. There were 284 gainers, 631 losers and 365 counters traded unchanged on the Bursa Malaysia. Turnover was at 1.693 billion shares valued at RM2.41bil.

Laggards in the FBM KLCI component stocks were led Tenaga Nasional Bhd (TNB), which dragged the index down by 1.3050 points. IHH Healthcare has a weightage of 4.58 dragged the index down by 1.2210 points while Genting Malaysia dragged the index down by 0.8803 points. 

TNB closed 14 sen, or 0.98% lower to RM14.18, IHH declined 9 sen to RM5.90 and Genting Malaysia lost 9 sen to RM550.

Leading the top gainers, Petronas Dagangan added 56 sen to RM24.78, Dutch Lady rose 34 sen to RM58.40 while Time Dotcom accumulated 27 sen to RM9.68.

British American Tobacco and Sam Engineering ended the day among the top losers, declining RM1.18 to RM43.80 and 38 sen to RM7.52 respectively.

Asian market were trading mostly in red; Nikkei 225 fell 0.45% to 20,138.79, Hang Seng eased 0.57% to 25,694.58 points, South Korea’s Kospi fell 0.49% to 2,357.53, Shanghai Composite was up by 0.52% to 3,156.21 and Singapore’s Straits Times Index fell 0.89% to 3,201.77.

Reuters reported that weakness among financial and retail stocks sent European shares down again on Wednesday. 

Europe’s STOXX 600 fell 0.6%, extending the previous session’s losses, while euro zone stocks fell more sharply, down 0.8% along with the bloc’s blue chips .

Banks were among the top fallers on France’s CAC 40 and Germany’s DAX.

Meanwhile, oil prices dipped on Wednesday, trading around multi-month lows as rising global supply offset efforts by OPEC and its allies to drain a glut.

Brent crude was last traded at US$45.78 per barrel, down 24 cents while US crude fell 14 cents to US$43.37 per barrel.

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