KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 21 — Bursa Malaysia opened lower on Thursday morning, taking the cue from Wall Street’s sharply weaker performance overnight as investors took profit following a solid performance in December so far.

At 9.05am, the FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) dropped 2.39 points to 1,462.17 from yesterday’s close of 1,464.56. The FBM KLCI opened 1.39 points lower at 1,463.17.

In the broader market, decliners outpaced gainers 165 to 90 while 236 counters were unchanged, 1,824 untraded, and 21 suspended.

Turnover amounted to 193.03 million units worth RM48.25 million.

Rakuten Trade head of research Kenny Yee said traders locked in profits as the recent rise in US equities might be overdone, which might explain why the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 476 points overnight, while the Nasdaq declined by 225 points with the US 10-year yield easing to 3.853 per cent.

However, in Hong Kong, he noted that the Hang Seng Index jumped 109 points, buoyed by Alibaba’s gains after the company appointed a new chief executive officer to head its domestic e-commerce arms Taobao and Tmall.

Back home, he said late selling yesterday saw the FBM KLCI slip below the 1,465 level again, having trended around the 1,470 level for most of the session.

“With six more trading days before saying goodbye to 2023, we remain confident that the benchmark index will trend higher amid the easing of the US Treasury 10-year yield to a six-month low.

“As such, we expect the index to experience some upside bias and hover within the 1,460-1,470 range today,” he added.

Among the heavyweight counters, Maybank eased one sen to RM8.96 while Public Bank and CIMB inched down two sen each to RM4.30 and RM5.88, respectively.

Tenaga Nasional lost three sen to RM9.97 while Petronas Chemicals was flat at RM7.18.

Of the actives, MLABS gained half-a-sen to one sen and Leform slid half-a-sen to 40.5 sen. TWL Holdings, Top Glove, and Auro Holdings were all flat at 3.5 sen, 90.5 sen, and 17 sen, respectively.

On the index board, the FBM Emas Index went down 14.03 points to 10,845.02, the FBMT 100 Index fell 13.62 points to 10,513.46 and the FBM 70 Index dropped 4.31 points to 14,543.60.

The FBM Emas Shariah Index weakened by 6.21 points to 10,990.47 and the FBM ACE Index shed 6.35 points to 5,187.52.

Sector-wise, the Financial Services Index contracted 32.03 points to 16,419.92, the Plantation Index was 10.69 points lower at 6,987.86 and the Energy Index slipped 1.18 points to 816.54.

The Industrial Products and Services Index shaved 0.01 of a point to 171.89. — Bernama