Bursa Malaysia opened lower today with the key index down 0.55%, in line with Wall Street's weak overnight performance.
At 9.10am, the market benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) fell 8.87 points to 1,602.41 from 1,611.28 when it closed yesterday.
Bernama reported that the index opened 5.13 points lower at 1,606.15.
On the broader market, losers outnumbered gainers by 235 to 226, while 313 counters were unchanged, 1,425 counters untraded and 93 others suspended.
Turnover stood at 448.70 billion shares worth RM285.92 billion.
The index provider, FTSE Russell announced that it will remove Malaysia from the Watch List for potential reclassification of the market accessibility level from ‘2’ to ‘1’ and will be retained in the FTSE World Government Bond Index list.
According to Rakuten Trade Sdn Bhd, although the key index will face some challenges with 1,615 as the immediate resistance level, reports that Malaysia will be retained in the FTSE World Government Bond Index are expected to boost buying interest.
"Therefore, we expect foreign funds to maintain their inflows, so the key index may try to break the 1,620 level today," it explained in its research note.
Among heavyweights, Maybank and Public Bank added one sen each to RM8.39 and RM4.24, Petronas Chemicals and IHH Healthcare rose two sen each to RM8.12 and RM5.32, respectively, while Hong Leong Bank did not changed at RM18.80, TNB dropped two sen to RM10.32 and CIMB one sen less to RM4.43.
For actives, Berjaya Corp rose one sen to 34.5 sen, Solution Group added three sen to RM1.38, Widad declined six sen to 59.5 sen, while AirAsia was down five sen to RM1.08 and AirAsia X declined half -a -sen to 10 sen.
On the index board, the FBM Emas Index fell 45.05 points to 11,789.77, the FBM 70 was down 1.19 points to 15,600.6, the FBMT 100 was down 47.12 points to 11,458.86, the FBM ACE contracted 39.34 points to 10,444.75 and the FBM Emas Shariah was down 76.55 points to 13,057.07.
By sector, the Financial Services Index rose 12.27 points to 15,431.38, the Plantation Index added 2.72 points to 7,099.18, while the Industrial Goods and Services Index fell 0.37 points to 192.49.
