KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 1 ― Bursa Malaysia remained lower at mid-morning, echoing the weaker sentiment in regional markets as selling activities in selected blue-chip stocks emerged, dealers said.
At 11.06am, the benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) fell 4.04 points to 1,543.61 from yesterday’s close of 1,537.80.
It had opened 1.31 points lower at 1,536.49.
Market breadth remained negative with decliners leading gainers 553 to 237, while 388 counters were unchanged, 1,066 untraded, and seven others suspended.
Turnover stood at 1.5 billion units worth RM853.96 million.
ActivTrades trader Anderson Alves said most of the Asian stocks fell on Friday, starting the final quarter of the year on the back foot following a weak handover from Wall Street overnight where the S&P 500 closed at its worst month and quarter since the beginning of the pandemic.
“Thin liquidity is expected to dominate the Asian sessions as China enters a week-long holiday, and Hong Kong markets were closed for the day. Looking ahead, traders are likely to start building new portfolio positions for the year-end, ahead of major shifts in monetary policy from G7 central banks, and as emerging markets start showing early signals of stagflation,” he said in a research note today.
Later today, he said there would be the final manufacturing purchasing managers’ index (PMI) readings from across the globe.
“Markets will be keeping an eye out for the US Institute for Supply Management's manufacturing survey and US Personal Consumption Expenditures data due in the US session on Friday,” he added.
Back home, heavyweights Maybank added 1.0 sen to RM8.06, Public Bank and Petronas Chemicals slipped 2.0 sen each to RM4.05 and RM8.68, respectively, TNB fell 1.0 sen to RM9.67 and IHH Healthcare was flat at RM6.70.
Of the actives, Sapura Energy and Serba Dinamik slipped 1.0 sen each to 10.5 sen and 31 sen, respectively, KNM eased half-a-sen to 22.5 sen and DNex declined 1.5 sen to 76.5 sen.
On the index board, the FBM Emas Index depreciated 48.38 points to 11,262.70, the FBMT 100 Index was 48.67 points weaker at 10,949.35, and the FBM Emas Shariah Index shed 57.30 points to 12,301.71.
The FBM 70 dipped 56.99 points to 14,923.77, while the FBM ACE lost 50.19 points to 7,108.71.
Sector-wise, the Plantation Index improved 19.93 points to 6,348.27, the Industrial Products and Services Index went down 0.93 of-a-point to 203.30, while the Financial Services Index slid 29.17 points to 15,178.18. ― Bernama
