Bursa Malaysia opens higher, but retreats thereafter

KUALA LUMPUR: Bursa Malaysia opened higher today, but retreated thereafter on profit taking, dealer said.
At 9.19am, the benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) was 1.51 points weaker at 1,689.99 from last Friday's close of 1,691.50.
The index opened 3.43 points higher at 1,694.93.
A dealer said despite Friday's strong rebound of 25.82 points, mostly due to end first-half window-dressing activity, the technical picture for the FBM KLCI remained bleak.
"While short-term indicators point to further recovery potential in the early part of this week, expect post first-half window-dressing profit-taking and selling to restrict any upside," he said.
On the broader market, gainers outpaced losers 165 to 146, while 184 counters were unchanged, 1,354 untraded and 19 others suspended.
Volume stood at 164.47 million units valued at RM99.14 million.
For heavyweights on Bursa, Maybank eased seven sen to RM8.93, Public Bank fell 24 sen to RM23.12 and Petronas Chemicals declined eight sen to RM8.33.
Tenaga went up 16 sen to RM14.80 and CIMB gained four sen to RM5.49.
Among actives, Hibiscus Petroleum gained 1.5 sen to nine sen and MyEG earned half a sen to 97 sen, but GSB slipped one sen to 21 sen.
Sapura Energy and Nova MSC were flat at 64 sen and 13.5 sen respectively.
The FBM Emas Index shed 9.449 points to 11,951.48, the FBM70 was 24.59 points easier at 14,602.47 and the FBMT100 Index slid 12.81 points to 11,745.12.
The FBM Emas Shariah Index bagged 7.98 points to 12,100.53 and the FBM Ace Index was up 9.29 points to 5,136.82.
Sector-wise, the Finance Index declined 52.699 points to 16,597.21 and the Industrial Index lost 1.79 points to 3,125.74, while the Plantation Index increased 0.92 of-a-point to 7,535.08.
The physical price of gold as at 9.30am stood at RM157.79 per gramme, up 61 sen from RM157.18 at 5.00pm last Friday. — Bernama