KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 18  — Bursa Malaysia opened lower today in line with its regional peers as US Federal Reserve’s (Fed) decision to maintain key interest rate renewed concerns about the global growth outlook, a dealer said.

At 9.13am, the benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) was 5.69 points lower at 1,675.85 after opening 4.73 points lower at 1,680.58. 

Market breadth was mixed to flat with gainers outpacing decliners by 152 to 115 while 138 counters were unchanged, 1,420 untraded and 11 others were suspended. 

Turnover stood at 161.62 million shares worth RM78.17 million.

The dealer said US markets eased last night as the Federal Open Market Committee meeting decided not to increase interest rates.

RHB Research Institute said the Fed was keeping interest rate unchanged for now, citing a slowdown in global economy, low inflation and lack of stability in the financial market. 

The FBM Emas Index fell 34.10 points to 11,494.67, FBMT100 Index eased 54.73

points to 7,128.86 and the FBM Emas Shariah Index was 54.82 points lower at 12,054.38.

The FBM 70 dropped 33.75 points to 12,344.04 and the FBM Ace fell 4.5 points to 5,458.44.

On a sectoral basis, the Plantation Index contracted 54.73 points to 7,128.86 and the Industrial Index slipped 4.87 points to 3,191.52. 

The Finance Index added 17.41 points to 14,573.78 points.

Among heavyweights, Public Bank edged up four sen to RM18.42, TNB fell 12 sen to RM12.06, Axiata eased one sen to RM6.28 and Maybank was flat at RM8.64. 

Among the actively-traded stocks were Aemulus, which rose 3.5 sen to 41.5 sen, IDimension was flat at 12 sen and Tiger Synergy inched down half-a-sen to 8.5 sen. — Bernama