KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 10 — Bursa Malaysia was mixed in the early trade today as cautious sentiments prevailed following Wall Street’s decline overnight, a dealer said.

At 9.15am, the benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) rose by 2.79 points to 1,467.43 from Thursday’s close of 1,464.64.

The key index opened 0.41 points better at 1,465.05.

However, the market breadth was negative with losers surpassing gainers 217 to 140, while 285 counters were unchanged, 1,532 untraded and 18 others suspended.

Turnover amounted to 366.80 million units worth RM150.08 million.

Rakuten Trade Sdn Bhd vice-president of Equity Research, Thong Pak Leng said Wall Street ended lower yesterday as concerns emerged over the United States (US) Federal Reserve’s rate adjustments which may be higher than expected.

He said the Dow Jones Industrial Average declined 249 points and the Nasdaq lost 121 points, while the US Treasury 10-year yield was higher at 3.66 per cent.

"Back home, selling of blue chips persisted, particularly the telecommunication and energy-related stocks.

"The benchmark index declined as sentiment remains jittery due to the unrelenting selling by foreign funds as the highly anticipated bargain hunting did not materialise,” he told Bernama.

Thong reckons that the market could be waiting for the re-tabling of Budget 2023 on Feb 24, thus he expects the index to continue to trend within a narrow range of 1,460-1,470 today.

Meanwhile, Bursa heavyweights Maybank gained four sen to RM8.66, Public Bank added three sen to RM4.16, CIMB widened five sen to RM5.42 and TNB improved two sen to RM9.55, while Petronas Chemicals reduced five sen to RM8.19.

As for the actives, Sapura Energy, MY EG Services and Velesto Energy were up by half-a-sen each to five sen, 72 sen and 22.5 sen, respectively.

YGL Convergence also ticked up 3.5 sen to 22 sen and PT Resources Holdings gained two sen to 66 sen.

On the index board, the FBM Emas Index bagged 16.35 points to 10,711.35, the FBMT 100 Index earned 17.13 points to 10,376.65, and the FBM 70 Index garnered 11.52 points to 13,624.45.

However, the FBM Emas Shariah Index lost 9.38 points to 11,037.14 and the FBM ACE Index was 35.58 points lower at 5,776.89.

Sector-wise, the Plantation Index perked 8.96 points to 6,887.75 and the Financial Services Index increased 87.97 points to 16,003.18, while the Industrial Products and Services Index lessened 0.49 of-a-point to 189.84 and the Energy Index lost 0.21 of-a-point to 884.67. — Bernama