Bursa Malaysia Opens Lower Amid Weaker Wall Street Cues
By Danni Haizal Danial Donald
KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 18 (Bernama) -- Bursa Malaysia opens lower on Thursday in line with Wall Street’s weaker overnight performance.
At 9.10 am, the FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) eased 2.53 points, or 0.15 per cent, to 1,638.91 from Wednesday’s close of 1,641.44.
The index had opened 1.21 points lower at 1,640.23.
Market breadth was negative, with 185 losers outnumbering 140 gainers. A further 260 counters were unchanged, while 2,191 were untraded and 12 suspended.
Turnover amounted to 137.70 million shares valued at RM72.42 million.
Rakuten Trade Sdn Bhd vice-president of equity research Thong Pak Leng said overnight Wall Street ended broadly lower as traders continue to rotate out of artificial intelligence (AI)-related stocks, sparked by a report regarding Oracle’s primary investor pulling out of its US$10 billion (US$1 = RM4.08) data centre project.
He said that, although Oracle has refuted this, the selling spread to other mega tech stocks as well.
“On the home front, we believe the FBM KLCI will continue to surpass expectations as we usher in 2026. Therefore, we expect the index to hover within the 1,640-1,650 range today,” he told Bernama.
Among the heavyweights, Maybank gained two sen to RM10.32, Public Bank and IHH Healthcare were flat at RM4.41 and RM8.59, respectively, while CIMB fell three sen to RM7.89 and Tenaga Nasional slipped two sen to RM13.22.
On the most active list, TWL and BMS remained unchanged at 2.5 sen and 20 sen, respectively. Top Glove added 2.5 sen to 67.5 sen, Hartalega garnered three sen to RM1.04, and VS Industry inched up half-a-sen to 48.5 sen.
Top gainers included Petronas Gas, which climbed 10 sen to RM17.86, Westports added seven sen to RM5.68, Hong Leong Industries rose six sen to RM15.96, Press Metal Aluminium and Itmax System advanced five sen each to RM6.94 and RM4.75, respectively.
Among the top losers were Dutch Lady Milk, which fell 66 sen to RM30.04, Petronas Dagangan lost 12 sen to RM19.22, Nestle erased 10 sen to RM113.70, Sunway Construction was eight sen lower to RM5.72, and UWC slid seven sen to RM4.19.
On the index board, the FBM Emas Index was 12.95 points lower to 12,067.47, the FBMT 100 Index dropped 14.70 points to 11,859.42, and the FBM ACE Index fell 27.94 points to 4,743.55, while the FBM Emas Shariah Index reduced 13.12 points to 11,908.02, and the FBM 70 Index decreased 4.67 points to 16,678.93.
Sector-wise, the Energy Index inched down 2.98 points to 766.39, and the Plantation Index retreated 33.04 points to 8,137.27, the Financial Services Index narrowed 2.47 points to 19,173.75, and the Industrial Products and Services Index edged down 0.22 points to 169.60.
-- BERNAMA