KUALA LUMPUR: Late selling of CIMB, Maybank and Public Bank saw the FBM KLCI closing down nearly 10 points as investors turned cautious in line with the key Asian markets and ahead of the 14th General Election.

At 5pm, the KLCI was down 9.97 points or 0.54% to 1,841.83. Turnover was 1.61 billion shares valued at RM2.12bil. There were 325 gainers, 525 losers and 401 counters unchanged.

World stocks were set for their biggest weekly loss since the middle of March on Friday, while the dollar hovered near highs hit on its recent rally as investors awaited jobs data from the US, Reuters reported.

The MSCI All-Country World Index, a gauge of stocks across 47 countries, was up less than 0.1%t on the day. It was set for a 1.2% loss this week, its highest since the week ended March 23.

CIMB fell 23 sen to RM6.77, the lowest since early February on accelerated profit taking and erased 3.87 points from the KLCI.  

Public Bank fell 14 sen to RM23.80 and erased one point, Maybank shed eight sen to RM10.62 and wiped out 1.57 points. RHB Bank, AmBank and Hong Leong Bank lost six sen each to RM5.16, RM3.71 and RM18.60. HLFG lost 18 sen to RM18.82.

Other major decliners were consumer stocks, with F&N down 70 sen to RM34.94, BAT 58 sen lower at RM23, Carlsberg 44 sen lower at RM18.12.

TimeCom fell 17 sen to RM8.09, Apecx Healthcare 13 sen to RM5.57 and DRB-Hicom 11 sen lower at RM2.16.