KUALA LUMPUR, July 24 — Bursa Malaysia opened lower this morning as adverse external sentiment and lack of positive local leads continued to dampen buying interest for the local bourse, dealers said.

At 9.32 am, the benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) was 7.97 points lower at 1,714.47 after opening 2.43 points essier at 1,720.01.

A dealer said the local stock exchange was also impacted from the weaker ringgit against the US dollar as a result of a string of positive US economic data, resulting in investors shifting their attention to the world’s largest economy.

On the scoreboard, the FBM Emas Index fell 51.19 points to 11,848.97, the FBMT100 Index shed 49.54 points to 11,519.41 and the FBM Emas Syariah Index erased 55.851 points to 12,295.27.

The FBM Ace was down 38 points to 6,444.55 and the FBM 70 declined 40.24 points to 12,824.5.

On a sectoral basis, the Plantation Index eased 8.8 points to 7,430.96, the Finance Index dwindled 52.391 points to 15,502.72 and the Industrial Index lost 3.56 points to 3,172.65.

Losers led gainers 267 to 152 while 207 counters remain unchanged, 1,185 untraded and 19 others were suspended.

Turnover stood at 221.65 million shares worth RM114.52 million.

Among actives, GPA and Emico earned half-a-sen each to 12 sen and 27 sen respectively, Denko added two sen to 43 sen, AWC lost one sen to 40.5 sen and Scanwolf eased 2.5 sen to 51.5 sen.

For heavyweights, Maybank slipped one sen to RM9.18, TNB fell 10 sen to RM12.20, Axiata lost six sen to RM6.31, Sime Darby added two sen to RM8.46 while Public Bank was flat at RM19.02. — Bernama