BURSA Malaysia opened lower in the early session on Monday amid a lack of fresh catalysts to boost the domestic market.
At 9.05 am, the FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) fell 7.98 points or 0.51 per cent to 1,563.77 from Friday’s close of 1,571.75.
The benchmark index opened 5.18 points lower at 1,566.57.
Market breadth was negative with 267 decliners and 92 gainers, while 276 counters were unchanged, 1,760 untraded and 17 suspended.
Turnover stood at 122.7 million shares valued at RM65.49 million.
Rakuten Trade Sdn Bhd said local institutions seemed to be net sellers likely to lock in some profits.
“As the initial public offerings are losing their lustre of late, we hope retail participation will improve in the secondary market in due course. For today, we expect the index to hover within the 1,570-1,580 range,” it said in a research note today.
The recent downgrade of the US sovereign credit rating also weighed on the fragile market sentiment.
On Friday, Moody’s Ratings downgraded the US rating due to concerns about the nation’s growing US$36 trillion debt pile.
Among heavyweights, Maybank, IHH Healthcare and CelcomDigi were flat at RM10.14, RM7.01 and RM3.97, respectively, while Public Bank shed two sen to RM4.48, Tenaga Nasional depreciated 16 sen to RM14.04 and CIMB declined four sen to RM7.14.
In active trade, NexG inched up half-a-sen to 38 sen, Innature rose one sen to 23.5 sen, Harvest Miracle and Jiankun were flat at 18 sen and 3.0 sen respectively, while SFP Tech eased half-a-sen to 25 sen and Nationgate trimmed two sen to RM1.67.
On the index board, the FBM Emas Index lost 57.59 points to 11,688.45, the FBMT 100 Index shaved 57.72 points to 11,434.98, and the FBM ACE Index inched down 6.73 points to 4,759.13.
The FBM Emas Shariah Index went down 71.59 points to 11,602.59, and the FBM 70 Index gave up 81.63 points to 16,620.78.
Across sectors, the Financial Services Index was 41.94 points easier to 18,445.71, the Industrial Products and Services Index dwindled 1.43 points to 158.25, the Energy Index dipped 4.19 points to 725.19, and the Plantation Index fell 50.90 points to 7,334.69. — BERNAMA
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