KUALA LUMPUR, April 5 ― Bursa Malaysia opened lower today on profit-taking, tracking the Wall Street’s negative overnight performance, said an analyst.

At 9.05am, the FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) eased 3.60 points to 1,549.64 from yesterday’s close of 1,553.24.

The benchmark index opened 2.17 points lower at 1,551.07.

On the broader market, decliners led gainers 243 to 125, with 283 counters unchanged, 1,669 untraded and nine others suspended.

Turnover stood at 150.61 million units worth RM69.93 million.

Rakuten Trade Sdn Bhd equity research vice-president Thong Pak Leng said Wall Street traders decided to lock in profits, underscoring concerns of overvaluation in the United States (US) equities after a series of unprecedented record-breaking rallies earlier this year.

He added that traders are waiting for the March US job data to be released later today.

"We hope the overnight sell-down on Wall Street will instigate more rebalancing of portfolios and divert the flows back into the Asian region.

"Nonetheless, we believe overall sentiment may be negatively affected, thus we expect trading to turn cautious and the index to hover within the 1,550-1,560 range today,” said Thong to Bernama.

Among the heavyweights, Press Metal Aluminium shed 7.0 sen to RM5.05, YTL Corporation, Maxis and YTL Power International were down by 3.0 sen each to RM2.63, RM3.43 and RM3.99, respectively, Tenaga declined 8.0 sen to RM11.42 and CIMB trimmed 4.0 sen to RM6.61.

Meanwhile, Axiata and IHH Healthcare climbed 3.0 sen each to RM2.64 and RM6.08, respectively, while Sime Darby and Petronas Chemicals added 2.0 sen each to RM2.76 and RM6.77, respectively.

As for the most active stocks, Tanco eased half-a-sen to 86 sen, Ingenieur added half-a-sen to 14.5 sen, Velesto was flat at 30.5 sen and Bumi Armada rose 1.0 sen to 61 sen.

On the index board, the FBM Emas Index reduced 22.78 points to 11,666.18, the FBMT 100 Index depreciated 21.66 points to 11,300.53, and the FBM Emas Shariah Index dipped 18.76 points to 11,803.31.

The FBM 70 Index decreased 12.36 points to 16,288.08 and the FBM ACE Index fell 8.00 points to 4,988.55.

Sector-wise, the Financial Services Index gave up 40.25 points to 17,255.52, the Plantation Index slid 9.59 points to 7,396.90, and the Industrial Products and Services Index was down by 0.39 of-a-point to 182.73, while the Energy Index put on 4.34 points to 985.07. ― Bernama