Bursa Malaysia opens lower
KUALA LUMPUR: Bursa Malaysia opened lower today in tandem with its weaker Asian peers as geopolitical uncertainties continued to cause jitters in the market and the overnight fall on Wall Street added to the bearish tone.
At 9.08am, the FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) was 1.71 points easier at 1,767.92 against Tuesday's close of 1,769.63.
The benchmark index opened 0.80 of a point lower at 1,768.83.
On the broader market, losers led gainers 154 to 65, with 225 counters unchanged, 1,390 untraded and 21 others were suspended.
Alliance DBS, in its note, said the strong upswing on Aug 30, 2017 followed by a strong downswing in the subsequent market day on Tuesday after the long-weekend, indicated a strong disagreement on immediate market direction among market participants.
''Following the easier close yesterday, the market may see selling attempt again with immediate support at 1,756 but overall market action revealed that buying power was weaker than selling pressure.
"As such, the FBM KLCI would likely trade below the 1,766.05 level today," it added of heavyweights, Tenaga shed two sen to RM14.36, Public Bank fell four sen to RM20.56, Sime Darby eased one sen to RM8.99 while CIMB Group and Maybank were flat at RM9.42 and RM6.76, respectively.
Among active counters, Sino Hua eased half-a-sen to 20.5 sen, Perak Transit added two sen to 38 sen, while China Stationery, Xinghe warrant and Maxwell International were flat at seven sen, two sen and one sen, respectively.
The FBM Emas Index fell 17.62 points to 12,575.69, FBM 70 slipped 34.99 points to 15,050.33, FBM Emas Shariah Index shed 19.73 points to 12,772.72, the FBMT 100 Index decreased 15.89 points to 12,252.39 but the FBM Ace added 4.21 points to 6,581.12.
Sector-wise, the Finance Index gave up 20.71 points to 16,576.83, the Industrial Index fell 3.94 points to 3,194 but the Plantation Index rose 10.83 points 7,861.04.
The physicalprice of gold as at 9.30am stood at RM178.60 per gramme, up RM2.17 from RM176.43 at 5pm yesterday. — Bernama