KUALA LUMPUR (April 6): Bursa Malaysia ended the morning session lower, tracking the performance of its regional peers, despite an overnight rally on Wall Street buoyed by optimism about an economic recovery following streaks of positive economic data.

A survey by the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) yesterday showed activity in the US services industry reaching its highest level on record in March. This came after the country’s positive jobs report last Friday, which beat the forecast with 916,000 jobs added last month.

At the lunch break today, the FBM KLCI was 5.46 points weaker at 1,578.78 from yesterday’s close at 1,584.24.

The index opened 4.03 points higher at 1,588.27, and moved between 1,575.18 and 1,589.06 throughout the morning session.

On the broader market, losers beat gainers 581 versus 350, while 456 counters were unchanged, 744 untraded and nine others suspended.

Total volume stood at 3.71 billion shares worth RM1.75 billion.

Regionally, Singapore’s Straits Times Index eased 0.3 per cent to 3,200.20, Japan’s Nikkei was 1.09 per cent lower at 29,762.78, South Korea’s Kospi shed 0.06 per cent to 3,119.0, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng was up by 1.97 per cent to 28,938.74.

A dealer said the local bourse opened higher but turned into negative territory at mid-morning, pressured by broad selling in heavyweight stocks.

“The local bourse was tracking the performance of most major regional peers which fell on concerns that China is curtailing loan growth for the rest of this year, after a surge in the first two months stoked bubble risks.

“This had dampened the regional market sentiment,” he said.

Of the heavyweights, Maybank lost seven sen to RM8.27, Public Bank and IHH Healthcare reduced two sen each to RM4.20 and RM5.31 respectively while both, Petronas Chemicals and Tenaga fell four sen each to RM7.95 and RM10.18, respectively.

Among the active counters, ACE Market debutant Volcano rose 14.5 sen to 49.5 sen, Vortex warrant edged up half-a-sen to one sen, Berjaya Corp slid four sen to 40 sen, Dagang Nexchange lost 5.5 sen to 80.5 sen, while Focus Dynamic warrant was flat at one sen.

On the index board, the FBM Emas Index was 26.92 points lower at 11,728.53, the FBMT 100 decreased 24.91 points to 11,379.66, the FBM Emas Shariah reduced 2.2 points to 13,017.10 and the FBM ACE eased 0.44 of-a-point to 9,707.90. .

The FBM 70 rose 20.64 points to 15,838.91.

Sector-wise, the Plantation Index went down 81.20 points to 6,950.12, the Industrial Products and Services Index eased 0.91 of-a-point to 193.04 and the Financial Services Index dropped 99.72 points to 15,200.51.