KUALA LUMPUR: Bursa Malaysia opened slightly lower on profit-taking activities among investors and especially in finance stocks, a dealer said.
This followed Bank Negara Malaysia's decision to raise the overnight policy rate hike by 25 basis points to 3.25 per cent to normalise monetary policy.
At 9.08 am, the benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) stood at 1,844.12, up by 1.74 points from Thursday's close of 1,845.86.
It opened 1.91 points easier at 1,843.95.Losers beat gainers 152 to 122, while 221 counters were unchanged, 1,371 untraded and 48 others suspended.
Turnover stood at 194.53 million shares worth RM61.46 million.
A Bloomberg Economics note said the central bank may want to avoid hiking again the lending rate before the general elections, which are due by August to avoid interference.
“A rate increase in the second half may also be avoided with the US government now talking down the greenback and starting to act more decisively on its protectionist threats.“
Putting it all together, Bloomberg Economics view is that further tightening will be limited in scope and not until the second half at the earliest,”it said.
Among heavyweights, Maybank fell one sen to RM9.99, Tenaga was down two sen to RM15.84, CIMB slipped four sen to RM6.98, but Public Bank rose 10 sen to RM21.30.
Of the actives, Sumatec and Tiger Synergy inched down half-a-sen each to 10 sen and four sen respectively, Maxwell was flat at two sen and AirAsia X was half-a-sen better at 40 sen.
The FBM Emas Index fell 7.61 points to 13,328.66 and the FBMT 100 Index eased 7.85 points to 12,997.39.But, the FBM 70 was up 4.63 points to 16,745.77.
The FBM Emas Shariah Index declined 6.53 points to 13,711.28, while the FBM Ace was 21.21 points lower at 6,715.53.
Sector-wise, the Finance Index declined 9.33 points to 17,547.17 and the Plantation Index eased 6.64 points to 8,054.59, and the Industrial Index improved 0.89 of a point to 3,364.21.