KUALA LUMPUR: Blue chips continued to lose ground on Friday, with the FBM KLCI  down nearly seven points as funds took profit on Petronas-related stocks, banks and plantations.

At 10.16am, the KLCI was down 6.91 points or 0.42% to 1,638.18. Turnover was 385.62 million shares valued at RM327.24mil. There were 178 gainers, 291 losers and 250 counters unchanged.

Hong Leong Investment Bank Research said the overall trend of the KLCI was still heading down south despite expectation of a mild technical rebound.

“Therefore, we expect the KLCI to position itself in range bound tendency today ahead of the upcoming 11th Sarawak state elections.

“Technically speaking, we are of the view that the trend of KLCI remains under pressure as the current downtrend is deemed to persist until very convincing reversal signals emerge. The overall sentiment is expected to stay weak, in tandem with depreciation of Ringgit against US dollar,” it said.

Petronas Gas  fell 26 sen to RM21.54, Petronas Dagangan 18 sen to RM23.38 and Petronas Chemicals 15 sen to RM6.39.

BAT fell the most, down RM1.32 to RM46.98, resuming its decline in the absence of fresh catalysts. 

As for plantations, PPB Group fell 20 sen to Rm15.44 and KL Kepong  16 sen lower at RM22.94.

Among the banks, Hong Leong Bank fell 16 sen to RM13.14  and HLFG 14 sen to RM14.84.

Vivocom shed one sen to 33 sen with 15.18 million shares done.

Scientex was the top gainer, up 12 sen to RM12.46 while F&N added 10 sen to RM22.28, Excel Force seven sen to RM1.41 and also up seven sen was Pestech to RM6.50.