KUALA LUMPUR (Feb 9): Bursa Malaysia ended the morning trading session lower on Thursday (Feb 9), in tandem with the weakness in most key regional markets, following the broadly negative cues from Wall Street overnight, a dealer said. 

At lunch break, the benchmark FBM KLCI had fallen by 3.81 points to 1,466.94, from Wednesday's close at 1,470.75. 

The key index opened 0.55 point higher at 1,471.30.

Market breadth was negative, with losers outpacing gainers 493 to 276, while 401 counters were unchanged, 1,004 untraded, and 22 others suspended.

Turnover amounted to 1.91 billion units worth RM997.59 million. 

In a note, Public Investment Bank Bhd said investor sentiments turned cautious on comments from US Federal Reserve (Fed) officials that US interest rates would have to rise to combat inflation.

"The blue-chip Standard and Poor 500 ended 1.1% lower, as traders remained concerned that rates may rise higher than they had expected since last week’s blockbuster US jobs report,” it said.

It noted that US markets had initially responded positively to Fed chair Jerome Powell’s comments on the need for further rate hikes to cool the economy. 

Meanwhile, Rakuten Trade Sdn Bhd vice-president of equity research Thong Pak Leng reckoned that blue-chip stocks are ripe for accumulation entering into the corporate earnings season, where the consensus remain confident that both the banking and telecommunication sectors performed strongly in 2022.

“For today, we expect the index to hover within the 1,470-1,480 range," he said in a note to Bernama.

Among the heavyweights, Malayan Banking Bhd (Maybank) at RM8.62 per share and Petronas Chemicals Group Bhd at RM8.23 had declined two sen each, CIMB Group Holdings Bhd trimmed one sen to RM5.39, while Public Bank Bhd gained three sen to RM4.15 and Tenaga Nasional Bhd added one sen to RM9.52. 

As for the actives, Zen Tech International Bhd at 5.5 sen and SMTrack Bhd at 4.5 sen had eased half a sen each, ATA IMS Bhd inched up half a sen to 36 sen, while MyEG Services Bhd at 71.5 sen and Hong Seng Consolidated Bhd at 20 sen were both flat.

On the index board, the FBM Emas Index slipped 30.50 points to 10,709.09, the FBMT 100 Index shed 30.11 points to 10,376.09, the FBM Emas Shariah Index shaved 45.88 points to 11,052.81, the FBM 70 Index slid 52.95 points to 13,636.18, and the FBM ACE Index gave up 21.49 points to 5,768.35.

Sector-wise, the Industrial Products and Services Index eased 0.35 of a point to 189.63, the Energy Index weakened 9.30 points to 884.52, the Plantation Index was 17.79 points lower at 6,882.53, and the Financial Services Index shrank 3.25 points to 15,951.31.