Bursa opens slightly lower
KUALA LUMPUR: Bursa Malaysia opened slightly lower today on lack of catalysts. The market players, however, anticipated it to rise tracking the positive Wall Street performance last week, said dealers.
At 9.15am, the benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) stood at 1,759.04, down 0.89 of-a-point from Friday's close of 1,759.93.
The key index opened 0.83 of-a-point easier at 1,759.1.
On the broader market, gainers led losers by 169 to 93 while 196 counters remained unchanged with 1,333 untraded and 28 others were suspended.
Turnover stood at 151.47 million shares worth RM76.38 million.
In a note today, Public Investment Bank Bhd said, the FBM KLCI might open higher today after US stocks and the dollar found some much-needed support last Friday from a "risk-friendly" non-farm payrolls report at the end of a week that was again dominated by a bond sell-off as the debate over central bank policy normalisation intensified.
"Oil markets provided another big talking point this week as sellers returned following an eight- session run of gains that drove Brent crude oil up nearly 11%," it said.
Meanwhile, the research house said, the US payroll employment growth rose to 222,000 last month from an upwardly revised 152,000, easily beating expectations, adding on to the optimism.
Of the heavyweights, Maybank, Sime Darby and Maxis rose one sen each to RM9.64, RM9.55 and RM5.50, respectively while Public Bank and Petronas Chemicals were flat at RM20.28 and RM7.09, respectively.
TNB fell two sen to RM14.10 and CIMB eased four sen to RM6.51.
Among actives, debutant AdvanceCon increased 14 sen to 77 sen, MLABS rose two sen to 21 sen and Dagang Nexchange was half-a-sen higher at 60 sen. Borneo Oil and Anzo were both flat at 11 sen and 12.5 sen.
On the scoreboard, the FBMT100 Index declined 3.7 points to 12,184.37, FBM Ace surged 62.18 points to 6,590.48, FBM Emas Index fell 3.01 points to 12,547.76, FBM Emas Syariah Index gained 3.27 points to 12,769.52 and the FBM 70 was up 4.62 points to 14,942.45.
Sector-wise, the Plantation Index was flat at 7,871.99, Industrial Index narrowed 0.64 of-a-point to 3,242.65 while the Finance Index fell 11.97 points to 16,750.62.
The physical price of gold as at 9.30am stood at RM161.94 per gramme, down RM1.29 from RM163.23 at 5pm last Friday. — Bernama