KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 1 ― Bursa Malaysia opened lower today, reversing yesterday's gains on profit-taking activities despite the stronger performance on Wall Street overnight, a dealer said.

At 9.06am, the FTSE Bursa Malaysia KCI (FBM KLCI) fell 2.24 points to 1,450.50 from yesterday’s close of 1,452.74. The benchmark index opened 0.74 of-a-point lower at 1,452.0.

The market breadth was negative, with decliners leading gainers by 178 to 132, while 234 counters were unchanged, 1,778 untraded and 27 others suspended.

Turnover stood at 177.45 million units worth RM80.73 million.

Malacca Securities Sdn Bhd noted that Wall Street ended the month overnight with a solid performance, in which three of the benchmark indices gained more than 8 per cent with the cooling inflation data and the US personal consumption expenditures (PCE) index that came in within expectations.

The PCE price index in October 2023, excluding food and energy prices, rose 0.2 per cent for the month and 3.5 per cent on a year-over-year basis, both in line with expectations.

“We also expect the technology sector to trade higher for the session, tracking the strong Wall Street performance.

“Meanwhile, from the final day of corporate earnings, we believe investors will re-assess the quarterly results and could position for window dressing activities,” the brokerage firm said in a note today.

Among the heavyweight stocks, Maybank gained four sen to RM9.02, Public Bank and IHH Healthcare rose three sen each to RM4.30 and RM5.86, respectively, while CIMB added seven sen to RM5.72.

Tenaga Nasional shed six sen to RM9.93 and Petronas Chemicals slipped 14 sen to RM7.08.

As for the most active counters, Zen Tech, Meta Bright and KNM were unchanged at two sen, 21 sen and 9.5 sen respectively, while DNeX eased half-a-sen to 39.5 sen and ARB dropped one sen to 8.5 sen.

On the index board, the FBM Emas Index was 19.74 points weaker at 10,707.66, the FBMT 100 Index shed 19.56 points to 10,376.99 while the FBM Emas Shariah Index trimmed 74.02 points to 10,855.34.

The FBM 70 Index shrank 41.89 points to 14,130.00 while the FBM ACE Index gained 25.58 points to 5,091.03.

Sector-wise, the Financial Services Index climbed 96.35 points to 16,318.31 while the Industrial Products and Services Index fell 0.93 of-a-point to 171.34, the Energy Index slid by 3.57 points to 825.53 and the Plantation Index was 47.92 points weaker at 6,993.49. ― Bernama