KUALA LUMPUR, March 3 ― Shares on Bursa Malaysia opened lower today, dragged down by weak market sentiment with losses mostly spotted in index-linked counters, dealers said.

At 9.45am, the benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) stood at 1,822.28, down 13.33 points, after opening 1.22 of a point lower at 1,834.4.

HwangDBS Vickers Research said Friday's mixed performance on the Wall Street might hurt sentiment on the Asian equities today. 

“The shaky external vibes could be felt on our local bourse too.

“The benchmark FBM KLCI may struggle to break past the immediate resistance threshold of 1,840, with its first support line currently seen at 1,825,” the research house said in a note.

On the scoreboard, the Finance Index fell 110.95 points to 16,495.17, the Plantation Index lost 64.84 points to 8,694.26 and the Industrial Index was down  31.54 points to 3,097.59.

The FBM Emas Index was 86.71 points lower at 12,582.8, the FBMT100 Index declined 84.54 points to 12,271.22, the FBM 70 dwindled 73.29 points to 13,760.42 and the FBM Ace erased 53.69 points to 6,390.18.

Gainers outpaced losers 126 to 432 while 223 counters were unchanged, 834 untraded and 14 others were suspended.

Turnover stood at 558.44 million shares worth RM307.56 million.              

Among actives, Minetech gained 1.5 sen to 19.5 sen, Sumatec added half-a-sen to 32 sen but Daya Material eased four sen to 36.5 sen.

As for heavyweights, Maybank slipped five sen to RM9.73, TNB was unchanged at RM12.00 while CIMB eased seven RM7.09. ― Bernama