Bursa Malaysia opens lower on lack of leads
KUALA LUMPUR: Bursa Malaysia opened lower today on lack of fresh leads to drive follow up buying after a rebound on Friday, dealers said.
At 9.26am, the FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) stood at 1,782.23, down 4.1 points, against Friday's close of 1,786.33.
Earlier, the benchmark index opened 3.4 points easier at 1,782.93.
A dealer said although there was a general improvement in momentum and trend indicators on the FBM KLCI following last week's recovery, follow-through buying and market breadth need to strengthen further and sustain upside, given that the index was approaching the formidable two-year high resistance.
“Key upside catalysts, such as further recovery in the local currency or global oil prices, will be crucial to support a convincing breakout above the 1,796 peak,” he said.
On the scoreboard, the FBM Emas Index was 28.13 points lower at 12,695.55, FBM 70 erased 47 points to 15,199.88, FBM Emas Syariah Index went down 35.681 points to 12,892.3, FBMT 100 Index decreased 30.86 points to 12,357.08 but the FBM Ace improved 17.9 points to 6,710.5.
Sector-wise, the Industrial Index declined 8.02 points to 3,234.53, the Plantation Index fell 40.98 points to 7,929.68 and the Finance Index lost 27.891 points to 16,801.09.
On the broader market, gainers led losers 226 to 178 with 236 counters unchanged, 1,202 untraded and 36 others were suspended.
Turnover stood at 275.38 million shares worth RM104.38 million.
Among heavyweights, Maybank and TNB were two sen higher each at RM9.72 and RM14.58, respectively, and Public Bank garnered eight sen to RM20.62.
Sime Darby lost seven sen to RM9.13 and CIMB eased five sen to RM6.70.
Among active counters, MLabs, Vivocom, Globaltec and Anzo added half-a-sen each to 10.5 sen, 13.5 sen, 5.5 sen and 11 sen, respectively, while Green Packet eased half-a-sen to 36.5 sen.
Gold futures contract on Bursa Malaysia Derivatives opened flat in early trade on lack of buying interest.
At 9.37am, September 2017, October 2017, November 2017 and December 2017 were unchanged at RM179.20, RM178.70, RM178.90 and RM177.80 a gramme, respectively.
Volume was nil while open interest amounted to 149 contracts.
At 9.30am, physical gold was down RM1.50 to RM171.56 a gramme. — Bernama