Bursa Malaysia opens higher, but retreats thereafter
KUALA LUMPUR: Bursa Malaysia opened higher, but retreated slightly thereafter on mild profit taking in selected heavyweights and in line with its regional peers, as concerns over the US-China trade discussions lingered, dealers said.
At 9.23am, the benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) was 1.70 points lower at 1,851.88 from Monday's close of 1,853.58.
The index opened 1.03 points higher at 1,854.61.
On the broader market, gainers led losers 198 to 188, while 215 counters were unchanged, 1,306 untraded and 20 others suspended.
Volume stood at 257.83 million units valued at RM176.92 million.
Public Investment Bank Bhd said the local bourse may have a positive bias today as gains for global equities were highlighted by a jump in the Dow Jones Industrial Average to a two-month high and a record peak for London's FTSE 100.
"An easing of China-US tensions over the weekend helped to buoy risk appetite with Steven Mnuchin, US Treasury Secretary, stating 'we're putting the trade war on hold'", it said in a research note today.
Among heavyweights, Maybank was flat at RM10.88, Public Bank rose two sen to RM25.20, while TNB shed 12 sen to RM15.54, Petronas Chemicals fell five sen to RM8.65 and CIMB declined one sen to RM6.59.
For actives, MyEG slipped 3.5 sen to 94.5 sen, Sapura Energy earned half-a-sen to 78 sen, Hibiscus Petroleum bagged two sen to RM1.03, while Globatec and Tiger Synergy were flat at five sen and 2.5 sen, respectively.
The FBM Emas Index went down 3.21 points to 12,877.09, the FBMT 100 Index decreased 4.02 points to 12,674.886 and the FBM Emas Syariah Index dipped 15.78 points to 12,934.74.
The FBM 70 jumped 21.35 points to 15,067.31 and the FBM Ace advanced 11.19 points to 5,390.34.
Sector-wise, the Finance Index was 17.72 points higher at 18,389.51, while the Plantation Index slid 12.38 points to 7,946.22 and the Industrial Index fell 8.27 points to 3,298.89.
The physical price of gold as at 9.30am stood at RM159.41 per gramme, up 48 sen from RM158.93 at 5.00pm yesterday. — Bernama