KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 26 — Bursa Malaysia opened 5.71 points lower this morning, tracking the Wall Street’s weak performance last Friday.

At 9.05am, the benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) declined to 1,419.27 from Friday’s close of 1,424.98.

The benchmark index opened 1.15 points easier at 1,423.83.

The market breadth was negative with decliners thumping advancers 294 to 69, while 194 counters were unchanged, 1,840 untraded and nine others suspended.

Turnover stood at 154.40 million units worth RM54.99 million

Rakuten Trade Sdn Bhd vice-president of Equity Research, Thong Pak Leng said with the local bourse now in oversold territory, he reckoned that the FBM KLCI index would stage a rebound anytime soon, hence expect it to trend within the 1,420-1,435 range today.

"Bargain hunting may emerge among technology and telco-related stocks following last Friday’s sell-down.

"However, oil and gas counters may see some selling pressure as the Brent crude dipped to US$86 per barrel on global recession concerns,” he told Bernama.

Among the heavyweights, Petronas Gas jumped 12 sen to RM16.54, MISC was flat at RM6.94, Maybank and TNB eased two sen each to RM8.67 and RM8.68, respectively, and Public Bank and CIMB both slipped by one sen to RM4.33 and RM5.38, respectively.

Petronas Chemicals shed seven sen to RM8.28 and Hong Leong Bank reduced 18 sen to RM20.50.

Of the actives, Aimflex edged up half-a-sen to 15.5 sen and HB Global rose 1.5 sen to 12 sen, while MAG Holdings was flat at 17.5 sen, and MQ Technology and Velesto Energy inched down half-a-sen each to 3.0 sen and 12.5 sen, respectively.

On the index board, the FBM Emas Index slipped 35.65 points to 10,161.73, the FBM 70 weakened 59.78 points to 12,372.01, the FBMT 100 Index lost 41.70 points to 9,891.92, the FBM Emas Shariah Index decreased 42.20 points to 10,196.0 and the FBM ACE gave up 45.98 points to 4,720.65.

Sector-wise, the Energy Index was 15.68 points easier at 696.96, the Plantation Index went down 2.72 points to 6,761.99, the Financial Services Index contracted 36.64 points to 16,231.93 and the Industrial Products and Services Index edged down 1.55 points to 170.65. — Bernama