KUALA LUMPUR, March 12 — Share prices opened lower on Bursa Malaysia this morning on profit taking activities after yesterday’s gains amid lack of fresh market leads, dealers said.

At 922am, the benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) stood at 1,816.63, down 11.92 points, after opening 1.22 points lower at 1,827.33.

HwangDBS Vickers Research said the benchmark FBM KLCI could pull back slightly today, probably dropping below the intermediate support level of 1,825.

“This comes after an abrupt rise towards the last few minutes of trading yesterday and the key US equity indices on Wall Street ended between 0.4 per cent and 0.6 per cent weaker overnight,” it said in a note today.

Against the shaky market backdrop, the research firm said stocks that may face selling pressure today included Puncak Niaga, Kumpulan Perangsang Selangor and Gamuda following the latest move by the Federal government to exercise its power to mandatorily take over the water concessionaires’ assets in Selangor.

“Hoping to buck the negative sentiment are stocks like Merge Energy, after clinching a water infrastructure contract worth RM158 million in Pahang,” it added.

On the scoreboard, the Finance Index erased 109.24 points to 16,358.17, the Industrial Index lost 24.02 points to 3,162.38 while the Plantation Index rose 8.08 points to 8,976.85.

The FBM Emas Index was down 71.64 points at 12,607.21, the FBMT100 Index declined 74.45 points to 12,274.84, the FBM 70 decreased 60.94 points to 13,927.02 and the FBM Ace lost 24.09 points to 6,591.26.

Losers outpaced gainers 210 to 123, while 183 counters were unchanged, 1,115 untraded and 15 others were suspended.

Turnover stood at 143.61 million shares worth RM101.1 million.

Among actives, Infortech Alliance and Astral Supreme added one sen each to 45.5 sen and 22 sen, respectively, while Malaysia Airline was flat at 24 sen.

As for heavyweights, Maybank and CIMB erased five sen each to RM9.55 and RM7.02, respectively, while Tenaga Nasional lost two sen to RM11.94. — Bernama