Bursa Malaysia opens marginally lower
KUALA LUMPUR: Bursa Malaysia opened marginally higher today on cautious sentiment following the conclusion of the US Federal Open Market Committee meeting yesterday.
At 9.10am, the benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) stood at 1,867, up 1.2 points from Wednesday's close of 1,865.8.
The key index opened 0.03 of-a-point higher at 1,865.83.
A dealer said the local stock market took the cue from Wall Street, which struggled to establish a clear direction, following the conclusion of the Federal Reserve's first policy meeting under the chairmanship of Jay Powell.
On Wall Street, the S&P 500 fell 5.01 points, or 0.2%, to 2,711, the Dow Jones Industrial Average ended down 44.96 points, or 0.2%, at 24,682.31 and the Nasdaq Composite Index declined 19.02 points, or 0.3%, to 7,345.29.
On the local front, the FBM Emas Index bagged 16.76 points to 13,114.3, the FBMT 100 Index was 13.3 points higher at 12,878.78 and the FBM Emas Shariah Index improved 20..681 points to 13,276.24.
The FBM 70 jumped 33.28 points to 15,655.7 and the FBM Ace went up 24.43 points to 5,810.27.
Sector-wise, the Finance Index rose 27.57 points to 18,178.33, while the Plantation Index was 4.69 points lower at 8,009.81 and the Industrial Index went down 5.51 points to 3,271.27.
Among heavyweights, Maybank added four sen to RM10.32, Public Bank gained six sen to RM23.74, TNB climbed two sen to RM15.80 and Petronas Chemicals earned one sen to RM8.30.
CIMB lost two sen to RM7.28.
Of the actives, Sapura Energy added two sen to 53.5 sen, Sumatec and Daya Material edged-up half-a-sen each to seven sen and 3.5 sen, respectively, and UMW O&G gained 1.5 sen to 32 sen.
DBE Gurney was flat at 3.5 sen.
Market breadth was positive with 177 gainers against 83 losers, while 174 counters were unchanged, 1,459 untraded and 25 others suspended.
Turnover stood at 236.31 million shares worth RM70.23 million.
Gold futures contracts on Bursa Malaysia Derivatives opened flat this morning on a lack of interest.
At 9.45am, spot month March 2018, April 2018, May 2018 and June 2018 stood at RM166.40, RM167.30, RM168.05 and RM168.05 a gramme, respectively.
Volume was nil, while open interest amounted to 767 contracts.
At 9.30am, the price of physical gold increased RM1.28 to RM161.89 a gramme from RM160.61 a gramme at 5pm yesterday. — Bernama