KUALA LUMPUR: Bursa Malaysia extended its decline on Monday as the positive vibes from the recent corporate earnings announcements subsided and investors locked their attention on the ongoing Ukraine-Russia crisis.

       At 9.15am, the FBM KLCI had dropped 6.69 points to 1,597.25.

       The market breadth was negative with 364 decliners compared to 170 gainers.

       According to Kenanga Research, the FB KLCI's direction in the near term will be dictated by swings in the plantation, oil and gas and banking stocks.

       However, the mid-, small- and micro-caps were all seen registering steep weekly losses.

       "The narrow-based market run-up suggests that the local bourse rally is losing steam.

       "And judging by the negative technical signals triggered by a bearish divergence in the stochastic indicator (which has formed declining peaks in the overbought area when the index was moving higher) and the unwinding of the RSI indicator from an overbought position, the FBMKLCI is expected to drop below the 1,600-psychological mark towards our next support threshold of 1,550.

       "On the upside, our resistance hurdle of 1,645 currently stands in the way for the benchmark index to advance further," said Kenanga in its weekly technical outlook.

       On the blue-chip index, bank stocks took a step back with Maybank losing five sne to RM8.95, CIMB dropping four sen to RM5.05, Hong Leong Bank shedding four sen to RM20.36 and Public Bank falling four sen to RM4.38.

       Plantation counters continued to rise, led by Sime Darby Plantation up eight sen to RM5.18 and Kuala Lumpur Kepong gaining six sen to RM28.10.

       Meanwhile, Petronas Chemicals was up four sen to RM10.08.

       Among the oil and gas plays, Hibiscus Petroleum climbed nine sen to RM1.33 while Bumi Armada gained 1.5 sen to 46.5 sen.

       Technology stocks remained on the backfoot. MPI lost RM1.92 to RM30.80, Vitrox dropped 22 sen to RM7.05 and Greatech fell 25 sen to RM3.31.