KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 20 — Bursa Malaysia opened lower in cautious note today tracking the overnight losses on Wall Street, dealers said.

At 9.07am, the benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) stood at 1,736.54, down 0.41 of-a-point, from yesterday’s close of 1,736.95.

The key index opened 1.03 points easier at 1,735.92.

Market breadth was positive with 133 gainers against 108 losers, 160 counters were unchanged, 1,466 untraded and 34 others suspended.

Turnover stood at 114.71 million shares worth RM43.94 million.

Public Investment Bank Bhd said after a drubbing overnight, global bond market showed no firm trigger for a sell-off, but the US looked set to pass a large corporate tax cut that it hopes would accelerate growth.

"This could fuel inflation and spur the US Federal Reserve to quicken its interest rate increases – and there is mounting optimism over the global economy going into 2018,” it said in a note today.

Meanwhile, a dealer said profit-taking on the local bourse was expected to continue today mostly in bluechips stocks.

Among heavyweights, Maybank fell three sen to RM9.46, Public Bank eased two sen to RM20.48 while Tenaga and Petronas Chemicals were each flat at RM14.90 and RM7.49, respectively.

Among actives, MQ Technology added 1.5 sen to eight sen, Diversified Gateway Solutions was flat at 12 sen and PUC gained one sen to 32.5 sen.

On the scoreboard, the FBM Emas Index increased 6.42 points to 12,517.28, the FBMT 100 Index rose 6.38 points to 12,186.41 and the FBM Ace surged 47.83 points to 6,401.67.

The FBM Emas Shariah Index went up 17.33 points to 12,866.37 and the FBM 70 improved 39.13 points to 15,524.17.

Sector-wise, the Finance Index fell 2.76 points to 16,473.58, the Industrial Index slipped 2.07 points to 3,143.66 but the Plantation Index rose 11.26 points to 7,801.38. — Bernama