Share prices on Bursa Malaysia open lower in early trading as demand has yet to pick up

KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 28 — Share prices on Bursa Malaysia open lower in early trading today, as demand has yet to pick up, dealers said.

At 9.30am, the FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI was 1.57 points easier at 1,816, after opening 0.87 of a point better at 1,818.44.

Losers outnumbered gainers 197 to 164, with 186 counters unchanged, 1,093 untraded and 30 others suspended.   

Turnover stood at 377.31 million shares worth RM117.86 million.

HwangDBS Vickers Research said investors will begin the week by weighing the impact of Budget 2014 unveiled on Friday.

“On the whole, the initial reaction on the stock market is mildly positive, suggesting that the benchmark FBM KLCI could challenge the immediate resistance hurdle of 1,825 soon,” it said in a research note.

In terms of individual sector implications, the research house said the obvious winner is the construction and oil and gas, given the continued spending in the two sectors.

“Telcos like Telekom Malaysia will benefit from the implementation of Phase 2 of the high-speed broadband project and aviation players, namely Malaysia Airport Holdings Bhd, Malaysia Airlines and AirAsia, may see better fortunes on the back of new investments to upgrade several airports and air traffic control management system to cater for rising tourists’ arrivals,” it said.

On the losing end, the worst affected are property developers after the drastic hike in Real Property Gains Tax and several other measures to curb speculative demand and sugar refinery and food and beverage players following abolition of sugar subsidy effective immediately, which may reduce sugar demand and bump up operating costs.

On the scoreboard, the Finance Index gained 4.06 points to 16,858.86, the Plantation Index fell 46.06 points to 8,494.7 and the Industrial Index lost 9.24 points to 3,118.67.

The FBM Emas Index declined 14.82 points to 12,621.6, the FBMT100 Index slipped 12.5 points to 12,351.17, the FBM 70 lost 22.19 points to 14,346.66 while the FBM Ace rose 25.69 points to 5,572.06.

Among actives, Hubline and Karambunai Corp fell half sen to 6.5 sen and nine sen, respectively.

Karambunai-WC added 3.5 sen to four sen.

As for heavyweights, Maybank was flat at RM9.98, while CIMB and Axiata added one sen each to RM6.92 and RM7.66, respectively. — Bernama