Bursa Malaysia ended this morning's trading session lower following cautious sentiment in regional markets.
At 12.30pm, the FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) was down 3.44 points to 1,540.31 from 1,543.75 at Thursday's close.
The benchmark index opened 6.8 points weaker at 1,536.95 and now moves between 1,533.8 and 1,539 throughout the session.
The market mood remained negative with losers outnumbering winners by 481 to 340. Meanwhile, 399 counters were unchanged, 1,103 were not traded and 38 others were suspended.
The total turnover was 2.29 billion units worth RM1.16 billion.
Rakuten Trade Sdn Bhd's Vice President of Equity Research, Thong Pak Leng said local sentiment on Friday may be affected due to Wall Street's performance yesterday. He expects the index to hover around 1,540 to 1,550.
He said again, Wall Street closed weaker as a reality that the price of producers of the United States (US) rose hotter than expected. All at once, this pushed the US 10-year yield higher to 4.292 percent.
Therefore, the DJI Average lost 138 points and the Nasdaq lost 49 points.
Meanwhile, heavyweights such as Maybank Bhd, Public Bank Bhd and Petronas Chemicals Group Bhd rose two sen each to RM9.67, RM4.25 and RM6.89. CIMB Group Holdings Bhd rose 14 sen to RM6.58 and Tenaga Nasional Bhd lost eight sen to RM11.48.
For active counters, Hong Seng Consolidated Bhd and TWL Holdings Bhd were unchanged at 1.5 sen and 3.5 sen respectively. Eversendai Corp Bhd rose half a sen to 33.5 sen and Econpile Holdings Bhd rose 1.5 sen to 45 sen.
On the index board, the FBM Emas Index fell 11.9 points weaker to 11,466.95, the FBMT 100 Index decreased 10.58 points to 11,131.05, the FBM Emas Shariah Index decreased 44.79 points to 11,491.71 and the FBM ACE Index fell 31.79 points to 4,695.79 while the FBM 70 Index increased 43.76 points to 15,626.89.
