Bursa Malaysia Ends Morning Session Lower

KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 28 (Bernama) -- Bursa Malaysia ended the morning session lower today as continuous selling was observed across the board, tracking the softer tone of the US market performance.

At 12.30 pm, the FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) eased 8.48 points to 1,550.49 compared to yesterday’s close of 1,558.97.

The benchmark index opened 1.53 points lower at 1,557.44 and moved to as low as 1,544.87 throughout the trading session.

The market breadth was negative with decliners thumping gainers 565 to 222, with 452 counters unchanged, 1,060 untraded and 37 suspended.

Turnover reached 1.50 billion shares valued at RM1.12 billion.

ActivTrades trader Anderson Alves believed market players remained in wary mode amid an uncertain environment following the Wall Street sell-off triggered by the introduction of China’s new artificial intelligence (AI) platform DeepSeek.

"Looking ahead, market participants will closely monitor the DeepSeek/AI narrative while awaiting key earnings conference calls this week, particularly from Microsoft and Apple.

"Additionally, all eyes will be on the Federal Reserve’s meeting, with investors keenly listening to Fed chair Jerome Powell’s remarks," he said.

Among the heavyweights, Maybank dropped four sen to RM10.32, CIMB fell three sen to RM8.00, Public Bank eased one sen to RM4.37, IHH Healthcare lost eight sen to RM7.15, while Tenaga Nasional gained 10 sen to RM13.54.

For actives, YTL Power shaved 28 sen to RM2.94, YTL Corp was down 12 sen to RM1.81, Gamuda fell six sen to RM4.00, Nationgate fell 16 sen to RM1.72, while Oriental Kopi rose four sen to 86.5 sen.

On the broader market, the FBM Emas Index declined 81.20 points to 11,816.14, the FBMT 100 Index lost 79.77 points to 11,516.50, and the FBM Emas Shariah Index fell 79.38 points to 11,650.41.

The FBM ACE Index dropped 18.33 points to 5,099.08, while the FBM 70 Index slid 183.90 points to 17,453.36.

By sector, the Financial Services Index dipped 76.43 points to 18,853.13, the Industrial Products and Services Index eased 1.19 points to 164.27 and the Energy Index shed 8.89 points to 815.41. The Plantation Index gained 5.91 points to 7,319.45.

-- BERNAMA