KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 23 — Shares on Bursa Malaysia opened higher but drifted slightly lower thereafter, on continued selling activities led by selected heavyweights.

At 9.20am, the FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) was 4.82 points lower at 1,809.28 after opening 1.17 points higher at 1,815.27.

HwangDBS Vickers Research said the local bourse might drift with a marginal negative bias today, after coming under renewed pressures yesterday.

“From a technical perspective, the benchmark FBM KLCI — which touched an intra-day low of 1,803 yesterday — could slip towards the psychological mark of 1,800 again,” it said in a note today.

Meanwhile, Wall Street continued its sideways trading pattern last night.

While waiting for fresh market leads to surface from the ongoing corporate reporting season, key US equity barometers ended between -0.3 per cent and +0.4 per cent.

Market breadth was negative as losers edged gainers 128 to 126 with 173 counters unchanged, 1,142 untraded and 15 others suspended.

Turnover stood at 140.70 million shares worth RM103.09 million.

Among actives, Silk Holdings added three sen to 59 sen, The Media Shoppe was flat at 6.5 sen, Xidelang eased 8.5 sen to 35.5 sen and Sumatec inched down half-a-sen to 29.5 sen.

As for heavyweights, Maybank edged down one sen to RM9.75, TNB was four sen lower at RM11.48, CIMB shed six sen to RM6.95 and Axiata slid two sen to RM6.58.

Sime Darby and Petronas Chemicals were flat at RM9.14 and RM6.74 respectively.

On the scoreboard, the Industrial Index went up 0.52 point to 3,085.18, but the Plantation Index fell 18.8 points to 8,504.07 and the Finance Index shed 66.02 points to 16,529.59.

The FBM Emas Index eased 26.52 points to 12,521.83, the FBMT100 Index lost 27.82 points to 12,230.0, the FBM 70 decreased 13.15 points to 13,894.9 but the FBM Ace garnered 2.55 points to 5,976.45. — Bernama