Investors stay to the sidelines pending Fed announcement

KUALA LUMPUR: Bursa Malaysia was kept on the back foot in morning trade as investors remain cautious over the US Federal Reserve's rate guidance tonight amid surging oil prices.

At 12.30pm, the benchmark FBM KLCI was down 4.08 points to 1,453.58. The market breadth however was slightly positive with 414 gainers compared to 404 decliners.

There were 2.04 billion shares traded for a value of RM1.21bil.

Among the biggest decliners on the blue-chip index were Maybank dropping four sne to RM8.87, Hong Leong Bank dipping four sen to RM19.86 and CelcomDigi sliding three sen to RM4.43.

Lower liners on the retreat included Paragon dropping nine sen to RM2.55, HCK shedding seven sen to RM2.11 and Hextar Technologies shedding 46 sen to RM23.52.

Meanwhile, gainers on the market included F&N up 36 sen to Rm25.60, Hap Dutch Lady adding 18 sne to RM22.58 and IW City climbing 8.5 sen to 77.5 sen.

Top actives included Ekovest up 2.5 sen to 58 sen, MRCB rising two sen to 48.5 sen and UEM Sunrise jumping 6.5 sen to 91.5 sen.

Regionally, market sentiment was soft as 10-year US Treasury yields hovered at 16-year highs and oil prices continues to climb amid a planned extension of production cuts by Saudi Arabia and Russia.

China's composite index was down 0.3% to 3,114 and Hong Kong's Hang Seng fell 0.75% to 17,862.

Japan's Nikkei lost 0.5% to 33,086 and South Korea's Kospi slid 0.1% to 2,556.