KUALA LUMPUR: Bursa Malaysia was little changed in early morning trade following the mixed performance on Wall Street overnight as investors attempted to lock in some profits from the recent rally.
At 9.05am, the FBM KLCI was up 0.46 point to 1,506.02. There were 100 gainers compared with 133 decliners.
Trading volume was 94.02 million shares valued at RM54.5mil.
Investors are weighing the release of more economic data, especially Malaysia's 2Q gross domestic product, which is due out later today.
"Whilst the market has stabilised along 1,500, we believe the profit taking activities may pick up with the mixed trading tone on Wall Street overnight, following a drop in PPI data.
"Hence, broader market may take a breather for the short term; especially the technology sector," said Malacca Securities Research in a report.
In the lead-up to the GDP, bank stocks remained afloat, led by Maybank up three sen to RM8.97, Public Bank rising one sen to RM4.66, CIMB gaining one sen to RM5.38 and Hong Leong Bank climbing 10 sen to RM20.88.
Technology counters fell slightly on profit-taking with MPI falling 22 sen to RM31.98, Greatech sliding five sen to RM3.90 and UWC shedding six sen to RM4.
Of actives, Theta rose 2.5 sen to 98.5 sen, Bintai Kinden
fell 0.5 sen to 9.5 sen and SFPTech gained one sen to RM1.14.
