27/04/2012 (Bernama) - Plantation and palm oil-related stocks pressured share prices on Bursa Malaysia at midday Thursday with the FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) continuing to remain in the red, dealers said.

The key index eased 0.16 of a point to 1,579.19 in thin trading.

Dealers said investors were cautious ahead of the Bersih 3.0 protest this weekend and despite optimism on the global market, following strong US corporate earnings and comments by the Federal Reserve on continued measures to support economic recovery.

The Finance Index lost 1.64 points to 14,126.69, the Plantation Index dropped 22.91 points to 8,696.43 and the Industrial Index declined 6.19 points to 2,836.83. The FBM Emas Index lost 6.96 points to 10,828.17, the FBM 70 Index fell 30.42 points to 11,887.97 and the FBM Ace Index erased 13.94 points to 4,544.0.

Decliners led advancers 303 to 192 while 284 counters were unchanged, with the volume at 576.170 million shares worth RM350.335 million.

Of the actives, 1 Utopia dropped half-a-sen to 9.0 sen, Ariantec lost two sen to 24 sen and Berjaya Corp-Warrants perked 19 sen to 19.5 sen. Among heavyweights, Maybank and Petronas Chemicals were unchanged at RM8.87 and RM6.60, respectively, Sime Darby added four sen to RM9.80 and CIMB inched up one sen to RM7.42.