KUALA LUMPUR, March 8 — Bursa Malaysia ended lower today amid the downbeat performance in the regional markets in tandem with negative cues from Wall Street overnight following the hawkish pivot by the United States (US) Federal Reserve (Fed).

At 5pm, the benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) dipped 4.01 points to 1,454.66 from yesterday's closing of 1,458.67.

The market bellwether opened 3.20 points lower at 1,455.47 and moved between 1,451.08 and 1,458.63 throughout the trading session.

Market breadth was negative with decliners surpassing gainers 536 to 314, while 413 counters were unchanged, 980 untraded and 11 others suspended.

Turnover amounted to 2.81 billion units worth RM1.97 billion.

Rakuten Trade Sdn Bhd vice-president of equity research Thong Pak Leng said the investors were wary that the US Fed will likely raise interest rates, following its chair Jerome Powell’s hawkish statement in the Semiannual Monetary Report to the US Congress last night.

Back home, he expects sentiment on the local equity market to remain cautious ahead of Bank Negara Malaysia’s interest rate decision tomorrow as well as the Fed's decision in the upcoming Federal Open Market Committee meeting on March 21-22.

"Nonetheless, we reckon accumulation of stocks on dips.

"We anticipate the FBM KLCI to continue its sideways trend within the range of 1,450-1,470 for the remainder of the week, with immediate support at 1,440 and resistance at 1,460,” he told Bernama.

Region-wise, Singapore's Straits Times Index trimmed 0.57 per cent to 3,226.86, South Korea’s Kospi shed 1.28 per cent to 2,431.91, China’s SSE Composite Index inched down 0.06 per cent to 3,283.25, and Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index tumbled 2.35 per cent to 20,051.25.

Back home, Bursa Malaysia heavyweights Maybank eased one sen to RM8.67, Public Bank and Petronas Chemicals slid two sen each to RM4.11 and RM7.20 respectively, while Tenaga Nasional added five sen to RM9.43 and CIMB put on two sen to RM5.57.

Among the actives, Top Glove lost two sen to 67.5 sen, Icon Offshore and Velesto Energy were both flat at 9.5 sen and 24 sen respectively, while Capital A climbed four sen to 81 sen, and Astro surged 12 sen to 73 sen.

On the index board, the FBM Emas Index decreased 25.61 points to 10,605.75, the FBM 70 Index fell 9.99 points to 13,488.96, the FBMT 100 Index dwindled 23.51 points to 10,283.34, the FBM Emas Shariah Index sank 40.68 points to 10,858.78, and the FBM ACE Index slid 30.93 points to 5,455.56.

Sector-wise, the Financial Services Index shed 10.72 points to 16,105.56, the Plantation Index shrank 70.57 points to 6,939.43 and the Energy Index slipped 4.72 points to 890.60, while the Industrial Products and Services Index eased 0.59 of-a-point to 177.22.

The Main Market volume ballooned to 2.81 billion shares worth RM1.97 billion from Tuesday's 1.83 billion shares worth RM1.56 billion.

Warrants turnover declined to 355.55 million units worth RM61.35 million from 504.87 million units worth RM90.59 million previously.

The ACE Market volume fell to 590.55 million shares worth RM255.46 million from 635.19 million shares worth RM245.41 million yesterday.

Consumer products and services counters accounted for 430.69 million shares traded on the Main Market, industrial products and servicesBer (400.33 million); construction (42.11 million); technology (150.64 million); SPAC (nil), financial services (62.14 million); property (116.95 million); plantation (26.54 million); REITs (5.49 million), closed/fund (18,600); energy (248.12 million); healthcare (209.70 million); telecommunications and media (115.51 million); transportation and logistics (33.32 million); and utilities (28.28 million). — Bernama