Bursa Malaysia opens lower in early trade

KUALA LUMPUR: Bursa Malaysia opened lower this morning, dampened by profit-taking after the key FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) closed at an all-time high of 1,895.18 yesterday.
The previous high of the index was 1,892.65, which it attained on July 8, 2014.
At 9.05am today, the FBM KLCI eased 4.61 points to 1,890.57. It opened marginally higher in gaining 0.37 of-a-point to 1,895.55.
Kenanga Research attributed yesterday's bullish performance to gains in energy companies and economic data from China.
Oil prices also improved to the highest level since late 2014 on the back of declining US crude inventories, with the key Brent crude being traded at US$73.69 (RM287).
Public Investment Bank Bhd said Bursa Malaysia's performance would be influenced by the mixed overnight performance of the main global equity markets.
"US Treasuries suffered further losses even as the S&P 500 equity index fell for the first time this week, despite the renewed advance in oil prices to a fresh four-year high," it said in a note.
On the broader market, there were 117 losers against 107 gainers, while 161 counters were unchanged, 1,531 untraded and 20 others suspended.
Volume stood at 155.55 million units valued at RM58.15 million.
Among heavyweights, Maybank and Tenaga eased six sen each to RM10.62 and RM15.94 respectively, PBBank slid four sen to RM24.20, PChem declined two sen to RM8.46 and CIMB was flat at RM7.31.
Among the losers, UTDPLT lost 24 sen to RM28.20, Nestle lost 20 sen to RM148.10, PMetal and Airport gave up 18 sen each to RM5.05 and RM8.89 respectively, while HLBank declined 14 sen to RM19.46.
For actives, Vizione, Sumatech, Daya and Panpage all bagged half-a-sen each to 15 sen, 7.5 sen, 3.5 sen and 27.5 sen, while SapNRG was 1.5 sen lower at 77.5 sen.
The FBMT 100 Index eased 28.02 points to 13,010.57, the FBM Emas Syariah Index fell19.77 points to 13,411.46, the FBM 70 slid 21.22 points to 15,710.75 and the FBM Emas Index was 26.33 points weaker at 13,209.62.
But the FBM Ace grabbed 18.26 points for 5,506.28.
Sector-wise, the Industrial Index bagged 4.17 points to 3,289.87, but the Finance Index declined 58.02 points to 18,461.92 and the Plantation Index fell 5.79 points to 8,038.61.
The physical price of gold as at 9.30am stood at RM162.32 per gramme, down RM1.25 from RM163.57 at 5pm. yesterday. — Bernama