KUALA LUMPUR (Oct 26): The FBM KLCI shed 2.25 points or 0.1% on profit taking in IHH Healthcare Bhd shares and after US shares at Wall Street closed lower overnight.

At 5pm, the KLCI closed at 1,736.80 points. IHH fell 14 sen to RM5.65 to become Bursa Malaysia third-largest decliner.

Across Bursa Malaysia, 2.53 billion shares worth RM2.13 billion were traded. There 415 gainers versus 335 decliners.

“Despite opening higher at the strike of the trading bell this morning, the FBM KLCI remained mostly in negative territory throughout the day, mainly due to the weak (overnight US share) performance at Wall Street. Domestically speaking, there was some heavy profit taking in IHH,” Malacca Securities Sdn Bhd senior analyst Kenneth Leong told theedgemarkets.com.

Malaysia's Budget 2018 will be closely watched as investors evaluate its potential impact on the stock market. Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak will table Budget 2018 in Parliament tomorrow.

Today, Leong said Budget 2018 is not expected to largely impact the KLCI's performance. He said “the impact is likely to be neutral on the stock market so we do not expect any big surprises.”

US shares fell overnight on Wednesday. Reuters reported that US stocks fell on Wednesday, with the Dow Industrials and S&P 500 indexes suffering their worst day in seven weeks, on a batch of soft quarterly earnings and a rise in bond yields.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 112.3 points, or 0.48 percent, to end at 23,329.46, the S&P 500 lost 11.98 points, or 0.47 percent, to 2,557.15 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 34.54 points, or 0.52 percent, to 6,563.89.