Bursa Malaysia opens lower to mirror Wall Street's performance

KUALA LUMPUR: Bursa Malaysia's benchmark index opened lower on Wednesday despite Wall Street's positive overnight performance on the back of the US Federal Reserve (Fed) statement that keeping rates high for too long would be bad for the US economy.

At 9.03 am, the FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) inched down 0.09 of-a-point to 1,614.33 from Tuesday's close of 1,614.42.

The key index opened 0.71 of-a-point easier at 1,613.71.

However, on the broader market, gainers led decliners 155 to 129, with 315 counters unchanged, 1,821 untraded and six suspended.

Turnover stood at 114.74 million units worth RM51.09 million.

In a note today, Malacca Securities Sdn Bhd said traders will be monitoring the upcoming US consumer price index and producer price index data this week to understand the Fed's direction.

On the commodity markets, crude Brent oil settled slightly below US$85 amid demand concerns despite last week's oil inventories decline while crude palm oil has fallen consecutively for five days and is trading below RM4,000, it said.

"Most sectors are on an upward trend, except for the plantation, consumer, and telecommunication sectors.

"Hence, we reckon that investors may position themselves within the data centre catalysts and the upcoming announcement on Kuala Lumpur-Singapore high-speed rail projects," the research firm said.

These catalysts will boost the appetite for more exposure within the construction, property, building material, and utilities stocks.

"Also, we like the recovering trend among glove stocks which may have bottomed out over the past year," it added.

Bursa heavyweights Maybank and Tenaga Nasional each fell two sen and eight sen to RM10.04 and RM14.30, respectively, while CIMB rose one sen to RM6.98.

Public Bank and IHH Healthcare were flat at RM4.11 and RM6.30, respectively.

As for the most active counters, Aimflex, Dataprep and K-One Technology were half-a-sen higher at 20.5 sen, 21.5 sen and 33 sen, respectively, Cabnet bagged 5.5 sen to 64.5 sen and Minox gained one sen to 27 sen.

Johor Plantations Group Bhd, which made its debut recently, fell half-a-sen to 89.5 sen.

On the index board, the FBM Emas Index increased 1.15 points to 12,474.03, the FBMT 100 Index rose 0.90 of-a-point to 12,046.83, the FBM Emas Shariah Index bagged 4.14 points to 12,832.27, the FBM 70 Index widened 7.26 points to 18,471.36 and the FBM ACE Index perked up 19.03 points to 5,969.29.

Sector-wise, the Financial Services Index fell 9.09 points to 17,700.68, and the Industrial Products and Services Index went up 0.03 of-a-point to 200.12.

The Energy Index garnered 0.21 of-a-point to 984.78, and the Plantation Index added 4.46 points to 6,936.58.

-- BERNAMA

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