KL shares easier in early trade

hare prices on Bursa Malaysia opened lower in early trading Wednesday
in line with regional equities after Wall Street ended in the red last
night, dealers said.

After 20 minutes of trading, the underlying
FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI fell 2.09 points to 1,630.48 after opening
1.56 points lower at 1,631.01.

IHH Healthcare Bhd, listed today
on the Bursa Malaysia Main Market at RM3.07 with 27 sen premium from
its RM2.80 initial offer price.

IHH has now became one of the
largest listed private healthcare providers in the world by market
capitalisation upon listing of RM23 billion or S$9.5 billion.

HwangDBS
Vickers Research Sdn Bhd said regional equities could face more selling
pressure as government bond yields in Spain and Italy hit new highs.

It
was a reflection of the deepening eurozone sovereign debt crisis,
leading the US stock indices to slide between 0.8 per cent and 1.2 per
cent at the closing bell, the research house said.

"At home, the key FBM KLCI is expected to pull back further from the support-turned-resistance level of 1,635," HwangDBS said.
It said the benchmark index, nevertheless, might show a sense of resilience to limit its downside risk in the near term.

This
comes as the limelight of the day will be on the simultaneous debut
listing of IHH Healthcare in Malaysia and Singapore this morning, it
said in a research note.

Meanwhile, Bursa Malaysia's Finance
Index fell 16.21 points to 14,641.67, the Plantation Index shed 5.13
points to 8,774.84, while the Industrial Index rose 0.94 of a point to
2,871.26.

The FTSE Bursa Malaysia Emas Index lost 14.399 points
to 11,161.24, the Malaysia Mid 70 Index dwindled 18.92 points to
12,311.62 and the FTSE Bursa Malaysia Ace Index slid 1.18 points to
4,284.3.

Losers outpaced gainers 148 to 82 while 140 counters were unchanged, 1,225 untraded and 19 others were suspended.
A total of 187.29 million shares worth RM425.84 million were traded.

Among
the active stocks, newly listed IHH was down 22 sen to RM3.02, Censof
earned half a sen to 47.5 sen and Cybertowers was unchanged at 37.5 sen.

Among
the heavyweights, Maybank fell one sen to RM8.74, Sime Darby was
unchanged at RM9.93 and CIMB gained two sen to RM7.87. -- BERNAMA