KUALA LUMPUR: Bursa Malaysia stayed little changed at the opening bell after the previous day's rally as optimism over a US interest rate cut helped to buoy optimism.
The profit-taking was slight, with the FBM KLCI slipping 1.72 points to 1,537.92.
Overnight, Wall Street stocks ended lower as investors fretted over the potential impact of Trump's tariffs on company earnings while a US services report for July pointed towards stalling activity.
In local analyst reports, TA Securities said optimism over a potential US interest rate cut may lift market sentiment in the near term, but a sustained move would depend on stronger buying momnetum and a significant improvement in liquidity.
Malacca Securities said the local bourse is expected to turn slightly cautious today followig the dip in the US, but remains bullish on the utilities, construction, telecommunication, and renewable energy sectors.
Its top picks in the segments are YTL Power, Tenaga Nasional, IJM, Time dotCom, Gas Malaysia and Solarvest. It added that investors could start accumulating banking stocks to capitalise on their attractie dividends for long-term investment purposes.
Meanwhile, Hartalega
continued to slip six sen to RM1.26 after declining yesterday on the back of a weak earnings result. The glove maker later announced it had received a notice of additional assessment of RM101.4mil from the Inland Revenue Board for assessment years 2017 to 2022.
Frontken saw some profit-taking, shedding five sen to RM4.30 after surging yesterday on its quarterly result announcement.
Unisem dropped six sen to RM2.37 and UWC fell five sne to RM2.44.
Of actives, NexG was flat at 53.5 sen, Top Glove slid three sen to RM60.5 sen and Pharmaniaga was up 0.5 sen to 19 sen.
