Bursa Malaysia opened lower, extending yesterday’s losses on continued selling in selected heavyweights and in line with most regional peers, dealers said.
At 9.17am, the benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) was 6.01 points lower at 1,839.02 from Tuesday’s close of 1,845.03.
The index opened 1.63 points weaker at 1,843.40.
On the broader market, losers led gainers 202 to 137, while 183 counters were unchanged, 1,386 untraded and 20 others suspended.
Volume stood at 185.91 million units valued at RM105.46 million.
Public Investment Bank Bhd said the FBM KLCI may trade lower today as attention remains on Italian politics, with the benchmark sovereign debt yield turning around, as buyers re-emerged for the country’s 10-year paper.
“On Wall Street, the S&P 500 gained as much as 0.3%, helped by signs the US-China trade war appeared to be abating, but suffered a late afternoon swoon to close 0.3% down for the day,” it said in a research note today.
Among heavyweights, Maybank was two sen higher at RM10.90, Public Bank rose 22 sen to RM25.42, Petronas Chemicals improved one sen to RM8.44, while TNB shed 10 sen to RM15.24 and CIMB declined five sen to RM6.60.
For actives, AirAsia X and Destini gained one sen each to 39 sen and 23.5 sen respectively, MyEG earned half-a-sen to 94 sen, while Hubline and PUC were flat at nine sen and 20.5 sen.
The FBM Emas Index slid 38.07 points to 12,806.52, the FBMT 100 Index decreased 38.69 points to 12,609.62 and the FBM Emas Syariah Index dipped 81.97 points to 12,793.51.
The FBM 70 lost 37.48 points to 15,068.35, but the FBM Ace advanced 1.60 points to 5,282.82.
Sector-wise, the Finance Index was 30.89 points higher at 18,476.08, while the Plantation Index improved 4.71 points to 7,944.63 and the Industrial Index fell 18.83 points to 3,286.82.
The physical price of gold as at 9.30am stood at RM159.97 per gramme, up 33 sen from RM159.64 at 5pm yesterday.