KUALA LUMPUR, May 29 — Bursa Malaysia extended its losses yesterday to open lower today as profit-taking activities persisted amidst Wall Street’s mixed performance.

At 9.05am, the FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) eased 2.83 points to 1,612.99 from Tuesday’s close of 1,615.82.

The benchmark index opened 1.11 points lower at 1,614.71

On the broader market, gainers outnumbered losers 224 to 159, with 313 counters unchanged, 1,725 untraded, and 50 suspended.

Turnover was 255.54 million shares worth RM118.80 million.

In a note, Malacca Securities Sdn Bhd said the FBM KLCI continued its pullback due to persistent profit-taking activities in the broader market.

The brokerage firm noted that Wall Street traded mixed, with the Nasdaq reaching the 17,000 level for the first time, led by a rally in Nvidia as investors stayed bullish given its stronger-than-expected results, driven by the demand for generative artificial intelligence.

It believes that the buying interest may flow over towards stocks on the local front, especially in data centre-related stocks.

"Hence, we believe the technology sector counters such as HDD players, hardware components and cloud distributors/providers will be in favour.

"Besides, we think the property, construction, building materials and utilities sectors may benefit under the data centre catalyst,” it added.

Traders will also be monitoring key data events, including the United States (US) unemployment claims, US core personal consumption expenditure index and US gross domestic product data, the brokerage firm said.

Among the heavyweights, Maybank declined five sen to RM9.94, Tenaga Nasional shed eight sen to RM13.18 and CIMB eased two sen to RM6.89, while Public Bank and IHH Healthcare were flat each at RM4.12 and RM6.20, respectively.

Among the actives, ACE Market debutante Kawan Renergy climbed 16 sen to 46 sen, Revenue Group added half-a-sen to 24 sen, Sealink International increased 2.5 sen, Pegasus Height was flat at half-a-sen and AHB Holdings slid one sen to 14 sen.

On the index board, the FBM Emas Index lost 19.18 points to 12,291.83, the FBMT 100 Index decreased by 19.16 points to 11,891.54, the FBM Emas Shariah Index slipped 14.59 points to 12,554.98, the FBM ACE Index fell 4.73 points to 5,484.83, and the FBM 70 Index tumbled 21.35 points to 17,669.37.

Sector-wise, the Financial Services Index shaved off 32.02 points to 17,599.91, the Industrial Products and Services Index inched down 0.10 of-a-point to 195.62, while the Energy Index added 3.97 points to 996.42, and the Plantation Index gained 5.03 points to 7250.69. — Bernama