Malaysian share prices closed 0.96 percent lower on Wednesday, ending nine straight days of gains with profit-taking sparked by the downturn on Wall Street overnight, dealers said. However, they said the profit-taking, led by blue chips, was overdue, and that the market will likely extend profit-taking in coming days.
The Kuala Lumpur Composite Index lost 11.93 points to 1,235.24 on volume of 2.97 billion shares worth 2.70 billion ringgit (779.90 million dollars). Losers led gainers 725 to 224, with 212 stocks unchanged. The ringgit was trading at 3.4615/4635 to the dollar at the close. "The drop today is expected after nine days of consecutive gains," said an analyst at a local research house, adding that it was "normal profit-taking."
"We don't expect a sharp drop going forward, but the market may gradually head downwards in the immediate term and may even test the 1,100-point support level," he added.
Blue chips IOI Corp, Genting and British-American Tobacco (BAT) led the losers at the close. Plantation company IOI Corp lost 0.70 ringgit to 21.50, conglomerate Genting dropped 0.50 ringgit to 39.50, while BAT shed 0.50 ringgit to 45.75. Among other blue chips, Tenaga was flat at 11.50 ringgit, Telekom Malaysia gained 0.10 ringgit to 10.10 and Maybank added 0.10 ringgit to 12.70.
National carmaker Proton was down 0.10 ringgit at 6.75, off a high of 6.90 during the day after the government said it was sticking to an end-March deadline to announce a partner for the firm.