Bursa Malaysia opens higher, but retreats thereafter
KUALA LUMPUR: Bursa Malaysia opened higher, but retreated thereafter today, amid the mixed performance of regional peers and as markets remained uncertain about the US-China trade spat.
At 9.05am today, the benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) was 3.18 points lower at 1,706.57 from Wednesday's close of 1,709.75.
The index opened 0.69 of-a-point better at 1,710.44 at 9am.
On the broader market, gainers, however, led losers 120 to 81, while 129 counters were unchanged, 1,588 untraded and 35 others suspended.
Volume stood at 79.83 million units valued at RM44.30 million.
OANDA Head of Trading in Asia-Pacific, Stephen Innes said markets remained unsure if they were in the calm after the storm, the lull between storms, or even in the eye of the hurricane of the US- China friction.
"But there's certainly a pattern forming, in that, while equity markets quiver during the trade dispute, stocks come roaring back with FAANG (Facebook, Apple Amazon, Netflix and Google) consistently leading the charge," he said.
Echoing Innes' view, Maybank Investment Bank Bhd (Maybank IB) said locally, technology stocks could benefit from the positive spillover from Nasdaq which ended firmer overnight.
"Technically, we expect the FBM KLCI to trade between 1,680 and 1,730-points today, while downside supports are at the 1,709 and 1,680-level," it said in a note today.
Regionally, Japan's Nikkei retreated 0.04% to 22,547.42, while Hong Kong's Hang Seng gained 0.23% to 29,764.05 and Singapore's Straits Times was 0.09% better at 3,318.92.
For heavyweights, Maybank and Tenaga slid two sen each to RM9.22 and RM14.24 respecitvely, Petronas Chemicals eased four sen to RM8.35, while Public Bank added four sen to RM22.82 and CIMB was flat at RM5.87.
Among actives, Hubline trimmed one sen to seven sen, Dagang Nexchange improved 1.5 sen to 42.5 sen and its warrant ticked up one sen to 15 sen , MyEG rose three sen to RM1.03 and K-Star was half-a-sen better at 10.5 sen.
Nestle led the top losers list by giving up RM1.40 to RM144.80, Petronas Dagangan shed 36 sen to RM24.50, as Telekom and BAT declined 24 sen each to RM3.39 and RM36.42 respectively. KLK was 20 sen weaker at RM23.34.
The FBM Emas Index eased 5.38 points to 12,081.11, the FBMT100 Index slid 8.86 points to 11,860.15, the FBM Emas Syariah Index slipped 24.53 points to 12,159.43 and the FBM Ace Index skidded 3.51 points to 5,263.44.
The FBM70 advanced 38.29 points to 14,744.70,
Sector-wise, the Industrial Index lost 16.18 points to 3,130.20, the Plantation Index fell 2.84 points to 7,569.81, while the Finance Index edged up 0.90 of-a-point to 16,937.40.
The physical price of gold as at 9.30am stood at RM157.99 per gramme, down 46 sen from RM158.45 at 5.00pm yesterday. — Bernama