KUALA LUMPUR: Bursa Malaysia opened on a flattish note on Tuesday after a mixed performance on Wall Street overnight offered little trading direction to investors.

       There was some slight profit-taking activity on the local market following the previous day's rally.

       At 9.05am, the FBM KLCI was down 0.72 points to 1,549.45.

       Global equities have faced selling pressure of late as the US is expected to begin its rate hiking cycle at the Federal Open Market Committee meeting later this month.

       However, optimism over the world's vaccination progress and its ability to handle the latest Covid-19 variants without lockdown have also sent recovery stocks higher.

       On Bursa Malaysia, technology counters continued their slide as investors shifted their focus back towards recovery plays.

       The local tech index slid 0.6% despite the Nasdaq's mildly positive performance.

       MPI was down 30 sen to RM47.60, Pentamaster dropped seven sen to RM5.03 and UWC shed seven sen to RM5.63.

       Meanwhile, bank counters paused their rally after the previous session's gains.

       Maybank slid two sen to RM8.32 and CIMB fell five sen to RM5.62. Public Bank remained unchanged at RM4.18 while Hong Leong Bank was untraded.

       The broader market was slightly negative with 228 decliners compared to 157 gainers.

       Top actives were MMAG down 0.5 sen to 9.5 sen, AHB up one sen to 26.5 sen and KGroup unchanged at 1.5 sen.