KUALA LUMPUR, March 8 — Bursa Malaysia ended lower today amid the downbeat performance in the regional markets in tandem with negative cues from Wall Street overnight following the hawkish pivot by the United States Federal Reserve .
Market breadth was negative with decliners surpassing gainers 536 to 314, while 413 counters were unchanged, 980 untraded and 11 others suspended.Rakuten Trade Sdn Bhd vice-president of equity research Thong Pak Leng said the investors were wary that the US Fed will likely raise interest rates, following its chair Jerome Powell’s hawkish statement in the Semiannual Monetary Report to the US Congress last night.
Back home, Bursa Malaysia heavyweights Maybank eased one sen to RM8.67, Public Bank and Petronas Chemicals slid two sen each to RM4.11 and RM7.20 respectively, while Tenaga Nasional added five sen to RM9.43 and CIMB put on two sen to RM5.57. Sector-wise, the Financial Services Index shed 10.72 points to 16,105.56, the Plantation Index shrank 70.57 points to 6,939.43 and the Energy Index slipped 4.72 points to 890.60, while the Industrial Products and Services Index eased 0.59 of-a-point to 177.22.