KUALA LUMPUR: The FBM KLCI drifted lower for the second straight day as investors backed away from a week's high hit on Wednesday.

With little to spur buying activity, equity markets moved mostly lower ahead of the US's Q1 GDP announcement later today, which is expected to show the economy outperforming the rest of the world.
 
At 12.30pm, the FBM KLCI was 1.59 points lower at 1,634.09. There were 1.54 billion shares valued at RM1.01bil. There were 475 decliners, 258 advancers and 339 counters unchanged.

With most KLCI-linked counter trading within a narrow range, leading movers were Tenaga Nasional falling six sen to RM12.10, Hong Leong Bank shedding 10 sen to RM19.90 and Hong Leong Financial Group dropping 12 sen to RM19.12.

Small caps continued to dominate the action on Bursa Malaysia with Ekovest topping investor interest.

The construction play put on 0.5 sen to 85 sen while Bumi Armada lost one sen to 23.5 sen and Tiger Synergy shed one sen to six sen.

Meanwhile, G3 Global, which hit limit up in the previous session, continued to pile on the gains, adding 17 sen to RM1.56.

Bursa Malaysia today issued the apparels and ICT company with an unusual market activity query given the rapid rise of its share price over the last four sessions.

Oil markets retreated on Friday on expectations that Opec will gradually increase its crude output given the recent price surge.

With Brent rising above US$75 a barrel on Thursday night, investors tooks some money off the table, bringing the index 17 cents lower to US$74.18 a barrel.

US crude fell 31 cents to US$64.90 a barrel.

Meanwhile, the ringgit was 0.1% higher against the greenback at 4.1328. It slipped 0.1% against the pound sterling at 5.3324 and 0.1% against the Singapore dollar at 3.0347.