KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 5 — Shares on Bursa Malaysia rebounded to open higher after the last-minute sell-off yesterday.

At 9.29am, the FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) was 1.64 points better at 1,823.54, after opening 0.22 of a point higher at 1,822.12.

Gainers edged losers 141 to 109, with 168 counters unchanged, 1,148 untraded while 29 others were suspended. Turnover amounted to 113.87 million shares worth RM78.13 million.

HwangDBS Vickers Research said the key market barometer would still struggle to overcome its immediate resistance threshold of 1,825 for now.

“Essentially, sentiment will likely be clouded by an absence of visible buying catalysts at this moment,” it said in a note.

“Overnight on Wall Street, major US bellwethers ended between flat and 0.2 per cent lower amid concerns of an earlier-than-expected tapering of the quantitative easing programme by the Federal Reserve.”

On the scoreboard, the Finance Index inproved 8.54 points to 16,782.03, the Plantation Index rose 1.26 points to 8,839.18 and the Industrial Index was 4.14 points better at 3,111.52.

The FBM Emas Index expanded 7.18 points to 12,615.13, the FBMT100 Index added 8.31 points to 12,352.27, the FBM Ace gained 9.42 points to 5,570.88 but the FBM 70 eased 1.78 points to 14,142.17.

Among actives, Sumatec was flat at 30 sen, Inix garnered 3.5 sen to 19.5 sen and AT Systematization added 0.5 sen to 13.5 sen.

Heavyweight Maybank was unchanged at RM9.88, Tenaga Nasional gained 4 sen to RM10.90 and CIMB added 1 sen to RM7.68. — Bernama