Bursa Malaysia slightly lower in early trade
KUALA LUMPUR: Bursa Malaysia was slightly lower in early trade today, with the key index retreating from yesterday's gains amid weak market sentiment, dealers said.
At 9.04am, the benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) was 3.25 points easier at 1,717.13 from Wednesday's close of 1,719.62.
The index opened 0.76 of-a-point lower at 1,719.62.
Market breadth, however, was positive with gainers led losers by 120 to 88, while 182 counters were unchanged, 1,488 untraded and 66 others suspended.
Turnover stood at 88.81 million shares worth RM46.64 million.
A dealer said the market sentiment was clouded by the overnight losses on Wall Street, which saw investors booked early profits from technology stocks on concern that the US Senate Republicans would likely pass a Bill to cut corporate tax rates by Friday morning.
The weak performance also affected other major stocks in Asian markets with Hong Kong's Hang Seng down 0.19% to 29,623.83, Singapore's Straits Times eased 0.10 per cent to 3,438.99 and Japan's Nikkei 225 trimmed 0.18% to 22,555.95.
On the scoreboard, the FBM Emas Index fell 11.05 points to 12,388.45, FBMT 100 Index shed 2.44 points to 12,053.94, FBM Emas Syariah Index decreased 7.03 points to 12,903.68 and the FBM Ace declined 6.95 points to 6,389.42.
The FBM 70, however, advanced 37.73 points to 15,347.84.
Sector-wise, the Finance Index rose 6.38 points to 15,911.27, Industrial Index soared 67.63 points to 3,160.81 and the Plantation Index perked 16.38 points to 7,891.84.
Among heavyweights, Tenaga rose four sen to RM15.44, Sime Darby perked 48 sen to RM2.33 and CIMB gained three sen to RM5.97.
Petronas Chemicals was flat at RM7.47. Maybank and Public Bank eased three sen and four sen to RM9.17 and RM20.22 respectively.
Of the actives, DGB and TH Heavy Engineering inched up half-a-sen each to 1.5 sen and 11.5 sen respectively, while Green Packet lost 2.5 sen to 41 sen.
The physical price of gold as at 9.30am stood at RM163.23 per gramme, down RM1.32 from RM164.55 at 5pm yesterday. — Bernama