KUALA LUMPUR: Bursa Malaysia opened sharply lower today, driven by profit taking in selected heavyweights and finance counters after recent gains, in line with downtrend on the regional bourses, dealers said.
At 9.20 am, the benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) was 13.82 points weaker at 1,688.30, from Tuesday’s close of 1,702.12 after opening 11.36 points lower at 1,690.76.
Market breadth was negative, as losers continued to outnumber gainers 271 to 93, while 194 counters were unchanged, 1,342 untraded and 25 others suspended.
Turnover amounted to 303.41 million shares worth RM128.43 million.
A dealer said that most of the Asian stocks went down in early session today over renewed concern on the ongoing US-China trade negotiations, as the White House reportedly cancelled a trade planning meeting with Beijing this week.
In a research note today, Maybank IB Research believed the the FBM KLCI would range between 1,690 and 1,720 points today, with downside supports at 1,658 and 1,644 points.
“While the big cap sentiment turned positive, we opine the focus now is back to export and import stocks following expected Ringgit weakness in the near-term. We expect FBM KLCI Index to challenge the immediate resistance before staging a pullback,” it said.
Among heavyweights, Maybank slipped three sen to RM9.48, Public Bank went down 32 sen to RM24.86, TNB declined 16 sen to RM13.54 while Petronas Chemicals fell nine sen to RM8.43.
Of actives, Bumi Armada perked 1.0 sen to 22.5 sen, Sapura Energy earned half-a-sen to 28.5 sen, while Panpages eased half-a-sen to 26 sen and Bina Puri shed one sen to 27 sen.
The FBM Emas Index was 87.61 points lower at 11,653.65, the FBMT 100 Index decreased 89.20 points to 11,538.30, the FBM Emas Shariah Index dipped 89.07 points to 11,553.83, the FBM 70 slipped 83.62 points to 13,645.02 and the FBM Ace Index declined 8.14 points to 4,433.58.
Sector-wise, the Finance Index slipped 98.09 points to 17,527.33, the Plantation Index went down 32.44 points to 7,210.35 and the Industrial Products and Services Index fell 1.03 points to 162.01.
Gold futures contracts on Bursa Malaysia Derivatives opened untraded today.
As at 9.34 am, January 2019, February 2019, March 2019 and April 2019 remained at RM170.00, RM170.00, RM170.50 and RM170.60 a gramme, respectively.
Volume was nil, while open interest amounted to 23 contracts.
At 9.30 am, the price of physical gold was up by 21 sen to RM165.20 per gramme from RM164.99 per gramme at the close yesterday. — Bernama
