KUALA LUMPUR, July 30 — Bursa Malaysia opened lower in early trading today on lack of buying momentum, dealers said.
Five minutes into trading, the FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) stood at 1,798.51, down 0.28 of a point.
HwangDBS Vickers Research said the benchmark FBM KLCI might attempt to stage a recovery and climb above the psychological mark of 1,800 ahead after slipping 8.8 points to settle at 1,799 yesterday.
“It is going to be a test of resilience for our Malaysian bourse today,” it said in a note today.
Wall Street posted a weak overnight performance with key US stock indices down between 0.2 per cent and 0.4 per cent at the closing bell mainly dragged by a drop in pending home sales.
On the scoreboard, the Plantation Index eased 8.06 points to 8,394.70, the Industrial Index fell 21.41 points to 3,071.41, and the Finance Index dropped 28.36 points to 17,230.23.
The FBM Emas Index went down 9.10 points to 12,537.10, the FBM100 Index eased 6.6 points to 12,278.66, the FBM 70 Index decreased 42.83 points to 14,454.78 and the FBM ACE Index was down 3.3 points to 5,080.53.
Gainers outpaced losers by 114 to 42, with 913 counters unchanged, 557 untraded and 72 others suspended.
Turnover amounted to 50.402 million shares worth RM34.098 million.
Among actives, Tanco Holdings and Asia Media Group were up by half-a-sen to 19 sen and 15.5 sen respectively while Flonic Hi-Tec, Dialog Group and Ariantec Global were flat at 13 sen, RM3.02 and eight sen respectively.
Mewly-listed Sona Petroleum opened at 41 sen, a discount from its offer price of 50 sen with 16.786 million shares changing hands.
Among heavyweights, Axiata, Maxis and Petronas Chemicals were flat at RM6.82, RM7.09 and RM6.60 respectively while Maybank and CIMB fell six sen and 11 sen to RM10.64 and RM8.20 respectively. – Bernama
