Bursa Malaysia is seen to have failed to reach its peak target of around 1,600 points in the midday session due to profit-taking by investors ahead of the United States Fed policy meeting.
The FBM KLCI retraced its downside move as it neared the break by 3.2 points to the day's low of 1,579.46 as investors took profits.
However, the local index is still trading in positive territory compared to most of the earlier which hit the highest level of the year at 1,589.06 points.
Broad market sentiment was negative with losers over gainers of 536 to 411. Meanwhile, 462 counters were unchanged.
The trading volume is 2.42 billion units of shares worth RM1.65 billion.
Meanwhile, the US central bank is scheduled to begin its Federal Open Market Committee meeting tonight and will announce a decision on monetary policy at its close tomorrow night.
For now, the market is setting a 57.8% chance of a rate cut in September based on weak investor expectations for US easing following a series of key inflation data.
Despite significant price movements, YTL Corp fell 13 sen to RM3.07 and YTL Power fell 20 sen to RM4.59 as investors cashed in some of their recent gains.
Kuala Lumpur Kepong dropped eight sen to RM23.12, Hong Leong Bank dropped eight sen to RM19.30 and PETRONAS Chemicals dropped four sen to RM6.85.
The main active counters today were Classita up 0.5 sen to 4.5 sen, MYEG up two sen to 93 sen and Iconic up 2.5 sen to 10.5 sen.
