Malaysian share prices closed 0.37 percent lower Thursday on quick profit-taking after Wednesday's gains, dealers said. They said losses suffered by index-linked heavyweight Maybank helped to drag the composite index lower. The Kuala Lumpur Composite Index was down 3.42 points at 919.95. Volume totalled 629.33 million shares worth some 992.19 million ringgit (261 million dollars). Losers led gainers 624 to 182, while 260 counters were unchanged and 223 went untraded.
A local dealer said smaller stocks that saw recent sharp gains were also heavily sold down in trading, and that he expected the market to remain mixed in rangebound trade Friday.
He saw resistance at 925 points and support at 910 points. Maybank was down 0.20 ringgit at 12.20 ringgit on volume of 2.72 million shares. Tenaga Nasional and Telekom Malaysia were both flat at 10.80 ringgit and 11.20 ringgit respectively.
Genting Bhd was flat at 19.60 ringgit, after gaining earlier on news that its oil and gas subsidiary has successfully tested and started production at an oil well in China.