KUALA LUMPUR: Bursa Malaysia remained on a downtrend at the end of the morning trading session today, dragged down by profit-taking in selected heavyweights amidst weaker sentiments among regional peers, said an analyst.

At 12.30 pm, the FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) fell 6.93 points, or 0.42 per cent, to 1,634.60 from Wednesday's close of 1,641.53.

The benchmark index opened 2.48 points lower at 1,639.05 and moved between 1,643.08 and 1,634.12 throughout the session.

On the broader market, decliners surpassed gainers 639 to 228, while 467 counters were unchanged, 1,168 untraded, and nine suspended.

Turnover stood at 1.43 billion units valued at RM916.66 million.

ActivTrades trader, Anderson Alves opined that Asian equities could be at a disadvantage today in view of the weak global markets, coupled with the weaker United States stocks led by losses in the tech-heavy Nasdaq.

"In Asia, the technology sector could come under pressure due to concerns surrounding Nvidia, as the company's shares had dropped after it revealed a flaw in its Blackwell AI chip.

"However, the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (TSMC) has reportedly addressed the issue, which could help ease some of the pressure," he told Bernama.

Back home, heavyweights Maybank and Public Bank both lost four sen to RM10.58 and RM4.51, respectively, and CIMB slipped two sen to RM8.16, while Tenaga Nasional was flat at RM14.42 and IHH Healthcare gained 12 sen to RM7.33.

As for the actives, BSL added half-a-sen to 3.5 sen and Niche Capital Emas improved one sen to 19.5 sen, while Capital A eased two sen to 97 sen, and Ingenieur Gudang and CN Asia were flat at 5.5 sen and 7.5 sen, respectively.

On the index board, the FBM Emas Index declined 50.18 points to 12,318.07, the FBM 70 Index dropped by 64.47 points to 17,791.20, the FBMT 100 Index slipped 48.86 points to 12,022.34, and the FBM Emas Shariah Index shed 25.64 points to 12,261.35.

Meanwhile, the FBM ACE Index inched up 17.40 points to 5,112.78.

Sector-wise, the Financial Services Index shaved 101.93 points to 19,414.63, the Energy Index slid 8.03 points to 853.76,  the Industrial Products and Services Index eased by 0.97 of-a-point to 176.29 and the Plantation Index shed 13.95 points to 7,274.22. — BERNAMA