KUALA LUMPUR, March 4 ― Shares on Bursa Malaysia opened lower this morning, dragged by selling of blue chips and key heavyweights, due to weak market sentiment caused by overseas pressure.
At 9.09am, the benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) stood at 1,820.57, down 4.12 points, after opening 3.78 points lower at 1,820.91.
HwangDBS Vickers Research said investors were turning jittery due to rising geopolitical tension in Ukraine which might spiral out of control.
The research house expectd the FBM KLCI, which slipped just below the support-turned-resistance level of 1,825 yesterday, could back off a bit more today.
“At the moment, the futures market is also indicating further downsides ahead, with the FBM KLCI March 2014 futures month currently trading at 1,814 or 10.7-points discount to the spot rate,” HwangDBS said in a note.
On the scoreboard, the Finance Index eased four points to 16,454.4, the Industrial Index lost 18.99 points to 3,094.95 but the Plantation Index rose 12.96 points to 8,741.68.
The FBM Emas Index fell 21 points to 12,572.11, the FBMT100 Index declined 21.17 points to 12,266.4, but the FBM 70 added 2.01 points to 13,781.32 and the FBM Ace gained 5.02 points to 6,334.59.
Losers outpaced gainers 134 to 116, while 180 counters were unchanged, 1,185 untraded and 14 others were suspended.
Turnover stood at 104.571 million shares worth RM41.5 million.
Among actives, both Daya Materials and AT Systematization shed half-a-sen each to 36 sen and 8.5 sen, respectively, but Minetech was flat at 18 sen.
As for heavyweights, Maybank rose one sen to RM9.69 but CIMB was flat at RM7.09.
However, TNB slipped four sen to RM11.94, Axiata shed three sen to RM6.54 and Sime Darby fell five sen to RM9.07. ― Bernama
