KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 15 — Bursa Malaysia retreated from last week's gains to open slightly lower today as profit-taking activities emerged in selected heavyweights following the strong closing on Friday, dealers said.

At 9.23am, the benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) eased 2.30 points to 1,503.89 from 1,506.19 at Friday's close.

The benchmark index opened 0.23 of-a-point higher at 1,506.42.

On the broader market, losers led gainers 194 to 165, while 314 counters were unchanged, 1,604 untraded and 18 others suspended.

Turnover stood at 308.34 million units worth RM169.91 million Rakuten Trade vice-president of Equity Research, Thong Pak Leng said the FBM KLCI is expected to stay resilient and maintain its uptrend today, hovering in the 1,510-1,520 range.

“Wall Street rebounded on Friday as many believe that the United States (US) inflation may have peaked.

“As a result, the DJI Average rose 424 points while the Nasdaq gained 267 points as the US 10-year yield eased marginally to 2.84 per cent,” he said.

Sector-wise, Thong noted that telco stocks -- especially those of network operators -- have been underperforming of late, and reckoned that they should be ripe for accumulation.

On commodities, he said that crude palm oil had jumped to above RM4,400 per tonne, tracking the higher soybean oil, while Brent crude fell to US$98 per barrel due to concerns over weakening demand.

Among the heavyweights, Maybank was flat at RM8.97, Public Bank and CIMB slipped 1.0 sen each to RM4.64 and RM5.42, respectively, and IHH Healthcare declined 5.0 sen to RM6.44, while Petronas Chemicals rose 2.0 sen to RM8.82.

Of the actives, Sapura Energy was flat at 5.5 sen and Top Glove fell 3.5 sen to 8.2 sen, while SP Tech added 1.0 sen to RM1.21 and Awanbiru increased 2.0 sen to 41.5 sen.

On the index board, the FBM Emas Index trimmed 8.02 points to 10,675.16, the FBMT 100 Index shed 13.06 points to 10,414.55, the FBM Emas Shariah Index declined 5.27 points to 10,785.06 and the FBM 70 lost 4.31 points to 12,757.08, while the FBM ACE increased 13.66 points to 4,950.40.

Sector-wise, the Financial Services Index reduced 11.65 points to 16,815.96, the Plantation Index went down 21.34 points to 7,175.47, while the Energy Index slipped 1.29 points to 661.83, and the Industrial Products and Services Index earned 0.25 of-a-point to 184.92. — Bernama