Malaysian share prices closed flat on Tuesday, or 0.02 percent lower in range-bound trade Tuesday in the absence of fresh leads ahead of the release of second-quarter economic data Wednesday, dealers said.
They said light bargain-hunting in selected blue chips pushed the composite index higher in early trade, but selling pressure came in later on.
The Kuala Lumpur Composite Index closed down 0.18 points at 923.79. Volume was 431.20 million shares, worth 650.50 million ringgit (172.5 dollars).
Losers outnumbered gainers 334 to 320, with 367 stocks unchanged and 299 untraded.
The ringgit was traded at 3.77 to the US dollar and 4.6023 to the euro.
"The good news was that the selling pressure has somehow eased off, however, higher crude oil prices and inflation kept dampening sentiment," a local brokerage dealer said.
Among blue chips, Tenaga Nasional was flat at 11.0 ringgit, Telekom Malaysia gained 0.10 to 11.10, but Maybank lost 0.10 to 11.30.
PECD was up 0.01 at 0.50, after announcing it had won a 66.3 million ringgit contract for The Center Hotel and Apartments Development at Al Muteena, Deira, Dubai, UAE.
Lion Diversified Holdings was up 0.02 at 2.01, after saying it plans to list its wholly-owned subsidiary Parkson Retail Group Ltd on the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong.
National carrier Malaysian Airlines System was down 0.06 at 3.32, after the company reported a net loss of 280.66 million ringgit for the first quarter to June, from a profit of 26.58 million a year earlier, due to higher fuel prices.