KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 3 — The FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) futures contracts on Bursa Malaysia Derivatives closed mostly lower today despite better performance on the cash market, dealers said.

Phillip Futures Sdn Bhd Dealer, Tan Sek Wei, said the FBM KLCI futures contracts for September 2013 and October 2013 were trading at huge discounts to the cash index, indicating some investors were bearish on the index.

"The discount to cash increased from 10.1 points yesterday to 26.2 points today. Looking at the behaviour of the market, traders were generally worried about the market performance in the future.

"Selling of foreign fund, weak currency and Quantitative Easing tapering off were main reasons for the concern," he told Bernama.

Meanwhile, Tan said, the increase in petrol and diesel prices, which was part of the subsidy rationalisation programme, was expected to cause inflation to rise, but the impact would be limited as Malaysia’s inflation rate remained healthy.

"By viewing it from the long-term perspective, we believe it is the right move towards improving the country’s fiscal deficit," he added.

Spot month September 2013 and October 2013 fell 9.5 points each to 1,698 and 1,697, respectively and December 2013 declined 3.5 points to 1,694.

March 2014, however, added five points to 1,687.

Turnover rose to 12,068 lots from 7,380 lots while open interest advanced to 50,343 contracts from 45,179 contracts yesterday.

The underlying FBM KLCI ended 6.65 points higher at 1,724.21. — Bernama