Share prices on Bursa Malaysia closed slightly lower today on continued mild foreign selling amid mixed regional stock markets, dealers said.

The FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) eased 6.97 points to 1,628.66 after hovering between 1,602.12 and 1,628.66 throughout the day.

Mercury Securities Head of Research Edmund Tham said today's foreign selling was not as heavy as yesterday, with the local bourse looking like it had been receiving some local support.

"The local fund managers have seemed to come in and the FBM KLCI is expected to be more stable tomorrow," he said.

Meanwhile, MIDF Research said the local market performance temporarily decoupled it from the rest of the region, but it would soon re-track the broad regional trend direction.

"Even after the arguably watershed GE12 results, the local benchmark continued to broadly track the regional trend direction," it said in a research note today.

The Finance Index dipped 131.02 points to 14,802.93, the Industrial Index slipped 7.96 points to 2,722.3 but the Plantation Index rose 11.11 points to 7,996.89.

The FBM Emas Index erased 43.34 points to 11,075.66, the FBMT100 fell 44.9 points to 10,925.75, the FBM Mid 70 Index shed 40.79 points to 12,045.82 and the FBM Ace Index was 5.1 points lower at 4,137.38.

Losers led gainers by 484 to 287 while 329 counters were unchanged, 559 untraded and 23 others suspended.

Volume fell to 1.27 billion shares worth RM2.23 billion from 1.83 billion shares worth RM2.61 billion on Monday.

Of the actives, Patimas Computers and Compugates earned half-a-sen each to 13 sen and nine sen respectively, Industronics added four sen to 55.5 sen but Krisassets Holdings shed one sen to 7.5 sen.

Among heavyweights, Maybank rose one sen to RM8.87, Aixata Group jumped six sen to RM6.36, Sime Darby was flat at RM9.22 while CIMB Group declined two sen to RM7.22.

Volume on the Main Market eased to 1.03 billion units worth RM2.21 billion from 1.41 billion units worth RM2.57 billion on Monday.

Turnover on the ACE market weakened to 112.43 million shares valued at RM15.17 million from 250.33 million shares valued at RM29.51 million yesterday.

Warrants decreased to 122.5 million units worth RM5.6 million from 166.03 million units valued at RM8.57 million previously.

Consumer products accounted for 55.89 million shares on the Main Market, industrial products 158.44 million, construction 40.73 million, trade and services 376.83 million, technology 141.39 million, infrastructure 30.7 million, finance 84.67 million, hotels 585,200, properties 95.32 million, plantations 23.01 million, mining 329,600, REITs 19.19 million and closed/fund 101,500.

- Bernama