KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 29 ― All listed index on Bursa Malaysia opened in the red today due to increased selling pressure as local political crisis continues to influence the market despite the announcement of RM20 billion stimulus package to battle Covid-19 impacts.
As of 9.08am, FBM Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) was 1.26 per cent or 19.08 points lower at 1,486.51, after opening at 20.69 points lower at 9 am sharp.
On the broader market, losers trounced gainers 499 to 54 with 140 counters unchanged, 1,350 untraded and 65 suspended.
Turnover stood at 346.67 million shares worth RM161.85 million.
An analyst said the slide in Bursa followed the interim Prime Minister’s, Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad statement yesterday said that an emergency parliament sitting will be convened on March 2 to pick a Prime Minister in a bid to bring the ongoing political standstill to an end.
“The only two options that stands as of now is that a snap election might be called or a decision on who has the majority support would continue to lead. In our opinion, the most likely scenario would be a snap election,” she said.
Meanwhile, the Conference of Rulers are scheduled to meet this morning with the country’s current political impasse expected to dominate their discussions.
As for the stimulus package announced by Dr Mahathir yesterday to shield the country's economy from the Covid-19 spread, she said the economy would benefit from it in total.
“Even though the positive push has pushed the market for a short period of time, political uncertainty would continue to fend off investors from entering the market for now,” she said.
On the KLCI index, 28 out of the 30 companies listed marked a decline with Tenaga Nasional declining 22 sen to RM12.28, followed by MISC as it slipped 22 sen to RM7.54, Petronas Chemicals slid 12 sen to RM5.68, PPB as it shed 56 sen to RM17.74 and Maxis lost nine sen to RM5.42.
These five stocks have contributed to the decline of 8.36 points to the index.
On the broader market, technology, medium and small caps, as well as energy, were the least performing index at the opening which saw it declined 2.28 per cent, 6.59 per cent and 3.04 per cent respectively.
Consumers continues to dominate the losers list with Nestle shedding RM2.80 to RM139.20, F&N dipped RM1.24 to RM30.06, Dutchlady dimmed 84 sen to RM43.00 while Carlsberg and Heineken declined 84 sen and 64 sen to RM32.94 and RM26.90 respectively.
As of actives, Sapura Energy and its warrant both declined 1.5 sen and half-a-sen to 18.5 and 8.0 sen respectively, while Avillion and Pegasus Heights were flat at 16 sen and half-a-sen respectively.
On the index board, all were in red with FBM Emas Index declined 148.82 points to 10,535.85, the FBMT 100 Index decreased 141.49 points to 10,347.72 and the FBM ACE shed 108.62 points to 5,476.50.
The FBM Emas Shariah Index slipped 203.07 points to 11,151.71 and the FBM 70 declined 213.69 points to 13,015.22.
Sector-wise, the Industrial Products and Services Index eased by 2.64 points at 135.99, while the Financial Services Index slid 78.60 points to 14,415.07 while the Plantation Index slipped 117.88 points to 6,838.58. ― Bernama
