KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 4 — Bursa Malaysia opened marginally lower today as mild profit-taking activities emerged in selected heavyweights amid mixed sentiment on the regional bourses, a dealer said.

At 9.05am, the FTSE Bursa Malaysia KCI (FBM KLCI) eased 0.84 of-a-point to 1,455.54 from Friday’s close of 1,456.38.

The benchmark index opened 1.41 points weaker at 1,454.97.

The market breadth was negative, with decliners leading gainers by 150 to 148, while 253 counters were unchanged, 1,771 untraded and 27 others suspended.

Turnover stood at 174.68 million units worth RM72.15 million.

Rakuten Trade equity research vice-president Thong Pak Leng expects buying in local stocks to emerge given the attractive valuations and persistent support from foreign funds.

"Nevertheless, we also do not discount the possibility of profit-taking activities throughout the day,” he told Bernama.

As such, he anticipated the benchmark index to trend within the range of 1,450-1,460 for today.

"Additionally, we could see some headwinds in the plantation sector as the crude palm oil futures are expected to fall below RM3,800 per tonne,” he added.

Among the heavyweight stocks, Maybank gained four sen to RM9.04, CIMB added six sen to RM5.83, while Public Bank lost two sen to RM4.30, Tenaga Nasional shed three sen to RM9.99, and Petronas Chemicals slipped eight sen to RM7.12.

As for the most active counters, Sapura Energy, Fintec Global, Mercury Securities and Green Packet were all unchanged at 4.5 sen, one sen , 38 sen and 4.5 sen respectively, while Sarawak Consolidated rose one sen to 78 sen.

On the index board, the FBM Emas Index was 2.65 points firmer at 10,728.31, the FBMT 100 Index perked up 1.35 points to 10,396.13, the FBM 70 Index rose 34.13 points to 14,082.18, the FBM ACE Index climbed 5.56 points to 5,138.72, while the FBM Emas Shariah Index trimmed 15.25 points to 10,862.33.

Sector-wise, the Financial Services Index put on 40.18 points to 16,419.75 and the Plantation Index was 1.20 points higher at 6,991.61, while the Industrial Products and Services Index fell 1.08 points to 170.91 and the Energy Index dipped 2.08 points to 813.52. — Bernama