KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 28 — Bursa Malaysia’s key index staged a pullback today for the second day running after having breached the 1,450-level on Wednesday, as profit-taking set in across the broader market.

The local bourse's lacklustre trading also mirrored the weak regional markets' performance as investors digested the European Central Bank and Bank of Japan’s (BoJ) interest rates announcements for clues for next week's US Federal Open Market Committee and Bank Negara Malaysia meetings.

At 5pm, the FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) slipped 6.78 points to 1,447.31 compared to Thursday's close of 1,454.09.

The key index opened 0.45 of-a-point higher at 1,454.54 and moved between 1,442.04 and 1,456.47 throughout the day.

The broader market was bearish with losers outpacing gainers 450 to 393, while 409 counters were unchanged, 1,117 untraded, and 83 others suspended.

Turnover decreased to 2.38 billion units valued at RM1.65 billion versus 2.53 billion units valued at RM1.87 billion on Thursday.

BoJ Governor Haruhiko Kuroda today kept the country’s policy rates unchanged, citing weaker growth prospects after the ECB raised its rates by 75 basis points (bps) yesterday.

An analyst told Bernama that BNM is widely expected to increase the cost of borrowing by another 25 bps.

‘’The market is closely tracking the US Federal Reserve’s next move, with a 75 bps (hike) likely,’’ he said, adding that the Bank of England is also set to announce its stance on interest rate next week.

Back home, heavyweights Maybank, Dialog and PPB dipped 10 sen each to RM8.58, RM1.91 and RM16.56 respectively.

KLK lost 38 sen to RM21.82, Public Bank fell five sen to RM4.38, and Sime Darby Plantation was nine sen lower at RM4.35.

Among the actives, Borneo Oil and Bintai Kinden were flat at 2.0 sen and 9.5 sen, respectively, Top Glove added 1.5 sen to 79 sen, MY E.G rose by 2.0 sen to 88.5 sen, and Tanco-WC was half-a-sen higher at 19 sen. — Bernama