KUALA LUMPUR, March 23 — Bursa Malaysia opened lower on Tuesday, with the market undertone remained sluggish due to lacks of buying catalysts and meaningful inflows from foreign funds.
At 9.05am, the benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) fell 2.51 points to 1,614.22 after closing at an intraday low of 1,616.73 yesterday.
The index was 0.05 of-a-point better at 1,616.78 at 9am and turned red 30 seconds after the trade kickstarted.
On the broader market, losers were slightly higher than gainers 228 to 207, while 310 counters were unchanged, 1,465 untraded and 11 others suspended.
Total volume stood at 309.59 million shares worth RM146.57 million.
Rakuten Trade said the index is likely to inch higher and test the 1,620 level today amid heightened volatile regional markets.
“As market volatility heightened, we reckon regional markets may see muted performances today,” it added.
However, at the writing time, regional markets, Japan's Nikkei 225 up 0.52 per cent to 29,324.71, Hong Kong's Hang Seng was unchanged at 28,885.34, Singapore's Straits Times was 0.62 per cent higher at 3,147.45, and Korea's Kospi added 0.05 per cent 3,037.11.
Among the heavyweights, Maybank lost two sen to RM8.31, Tenaga was six sen better at RM10.82 PBBank added one sen to RM4.23, while PChem, IHH, CIMB and Topglove were all flat at RM8.20, RM5.31, RM4.5, and RM5.14, respectively.
As for active counters, G3 added three sen to 24 sen, Widad advanced four sen to 47.5 sen, while DataPRP erased 42 sen to RM1.33, and Hubline was flat at 4.5 sen.
On the index board, the FBM Emas Index weakened 5.13 points to 11,855.81, the FBMT 100 eased 11.47 points to 11,527.75, and the FBM Emas Shariah edged down 12.78 points to 13,158.64.
The FBM 70 gained 9.36 points to 15,634.38 and the FBM ACE was 39.05 points better at 10,691.71.
Sector-wise, the Financial Services Index improved 17.56 points to 15,443.99, the Plantation Index inched up 3.69 points to 7,154.09, while the Industrial Products and Services Index advanced 0.74 of-a-point to 193.82.
— Bernama
