KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 7 —Bursa Malaysia opened marginally lower on Monday amidst cautious market sentiment due to the Wall Street’s weak performance on Friday and concerns over China's economic growth.
At 9.10 am, the FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) eased 1.81 points to 1,443.4 points from 1,445.21 points at Friday’s close.
The key index opened 0.32 of-a-point lower at 1,444.89.
On the broader market, there were 149 gainers and 143 losers, while 260 counters were unchanged, 1,722 untraded and 26 others were suspended.
Turnover stood at 214.2 million units worth RM76.63 million.
Rakuten Trade Sdn Bhd equity research vice-president Thong Pak Leng said Wall Street declined last Friday on profit-taking following strong United States corporate earnings reports, and slower US job data for July.
On Aug 1, credit rating firm Fitch downgraded the US debt rating by one notch from “AAA” to “AA+”.
On the home front, Thong said the local bourse was resilient and closed higher on Friday despite intra-day profit-taking activities.
“So far, the FBM KLCI’s performance has been impressive as the equity research firm waits for the overall volume to spike, showing a more rounded market performance.
“For today, we expect the index to hover between 1,440 and 1,455 points as a broad base accumulation of blue chips is set to persist.”
Among the heavyweights, CIMB shed two sen to RM5.48, Tenaga eased five sen to RM9.55, Petronas Chemicals lost six sen for RM6.79 and IHH Healthcare slipped one sen to RM6.00, while Maybank added one sen to RM8.92.
Public Bank, CelcomDigi and Hong Leong Bank were flat at RM4.12, RM4.42 and RM19.58, respectively.
Of the actives, Classita and Advance Synergy added one sen each to 17 sen and 17.5 sen, respectively, MST Golf lost 3.5 sen to 56 sen, while Sapura Energy and Tanco were flat at 4.5 sen and 55.5 sen, respectively.
Meanwhile, the FBM Emas Index went down 10.38 points to 10,606.99, the FBMT 100 Index fell 10.85 points to 10,300.03, the FBM Emas Shariah Index decreased 11.45 points to 10,860.1, the FBM ACE Index eased 19.3 points to 5,234.41, and the FBM 70 Index slid 5.78 points to 13,915.38.
Sector-wise, the Financial Services Index eased 5.64 points to 16,136.37 and the Industrial Products and Services Index trimmed 0.82 of-a-point to 165.68, while the Energy Index gained 3.82 points to 830.18 and the Plantation Index increased 7.86 points to 7,088.57.
— Bernama
