Bursa Malaysia opens lower on profit-taking

KUALA LUMPUR: Bursa Malaysia opened lower today on profit taking activities in heavyweights and in line with most regional markets, while tracking the overnight losses on Wall Street, dealers said.
At 9.10am, the benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) stood at 1,822.73, down 3.30 points, from yesterday's close of 1,826.03. It opened 1.48 points weaker at 1,824.55.
Overall market breadth was slightly negative with losers leading gainers 161 to 155, while 213 counters were unchanged, 1,304 untraded and 22 others suspended.
Turnover stood at 518.35 million shares worth RM107.49 million.
In a research note today, Maybank Investment Bank Research (Maybank IB) said that after rising for three consecutive days, the local benchmark is likely to take a breather soon, mirroring losses in overnight US markets.
"Oil and Gas stocks will take the brunt of the selling following a sharp fall in oil price. Technically, we expect the benchmark index to trade between 1,820 and 1,830 points today. Downside supports are 1,812 and 1,793 points," it said.
Among heavyweights, Maybank and Petronas Chemicals slipped two sen each to RM9.83 and RM8.17, respectively, TNB was flat at RM15.88, while Public Bank rose four sen to RM20.92.
Of the actives, Xinghe rose 1.5 sen to 7.5 sen, Globaltec earned half-a-sen to 6.5 sen, while Sumatec shed 1.5 sen to 10.5 sen and Perisai Petroleum fell two sen to seven sen.
The FBM Emas Index was 18.79 points lower at 13,169.25, the FBMT 100 Index slipped 18.37 points to 12,817.45 and the FBM 70 declined 7.34 points to 16,416.09.
The FBM Emas Syariah Index fell 12.77 points to 13,627.66, but the FBM Ace perked 62.07 points to 6,842.83.
Sector-wise, the Finance Index shed 41.24 points to 17,149.56, the Plantation Index dipped 8.18 points to 8,087.50, while the Industrial Index was up 19.03 points to 3,375.45.
The physical price of gold as at 9.30am stood at RM164.62 per gramme, up six sen from RM164.56 at 5.00pm yesterday. — Bernama