KUALA LUMPUR: Bursa Malaysia sank into the red in early morning trade following a strong rebound over the past two sessions.
While foreign funds have continued to exit the market, local institutions have been hunting for bargains on the local stock exchange due to low valuations and a return to trading on fundamentals.
In the Asian region, investors turned cautious ahead of the European Central Bank's stimulus tapering that may end its bond purchasing programme.
At 9.10am, the FBM KLCI was down 1.15 points to 1,784.66. There were 306,500 shares traded with a value of RM92.18mil. There were 162 gainers versus 152 decliners and 192 counters unchanged.
Among the heavily traded counters, Barakah
rose one sen to 23 sen, Vivicom rose one sen to seven sen and Nova MSC gained four sen to 14.5 sen.
Nestle was among the top gainers, adding 30 sen to RM147. MAHB rose 10 sen to RM8.86 while Hong Leong Bank put on 14 sen to RM19.20.
Taking a step back was BAT, dropping 18 sen to RM35.46, KL Kepong slipping eight sen to RM24.84 and Maybank sliding six sen to RM9.81.
Meanwhile oil prices continued to rise on Venezuela's supply disruptions. WTI crude rose 19 cents to US66.14 a barrel while Brent crude gained US$77.45 a barrel.
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