KUALA LUMPUR: A weak performance on Wall Street overnight cast a pall over Bursa Malaysia with selling interest in technology stocks likely to affect overall market sentiment.

       The Nasdaq Index slumped 1.7% amid a sell-off in technology counters as bond yields retreated after October's consumer price index showed its biggest annual jump in more than three decades.

       The reading was evidence of surging inflation in the world's largest economy, which also pulled the Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P500 lower by 0.7% and 0.8% respectively.

       "With the negative performance on Wall Street overnight, especially in the technology sector, selling interest may spill over on to the local front at least for the rest of the week," said Malacca Securities Research in a Thursday note.

       At 9.15am, Bursa Malaysia's Technology Index was down 0.75% to 98.41 points as investors rotated out of the sector.

       Meanwhile on the benchmark FBM KLCI, blue chips were a fraction of a point higher at 1,521.73 as investors made a weak rebound attempt following sharp losses in the previous session.

       The domestic market has been hit with growing anxieties over the state of the domestic economy as well as rising global inflation, hot on the heels of a steep sell-off following from the government's special tax and stamp duty proposals in Budget 2022.

       According to Malacca Securities, market players will be deploying a wait-and-see strategy ahead of Malaysia's 3Q GDP data, scheduled for release on Friday.

       From a technical view ,the market remains negative with the FBM KLCI decline yesterday forming another bearish candle reading on the price chart.

       The momentum indicators show weak readings with the relative strength index hovering below the 50-point level.

       "Based on the technical readings, the downside risk may take the KLCI towards 1,500-1510. Resistance is located at 1,540-1550," it said.

       On the blue-chip index, there was a mild rebound in financial counters, which are among those expected to be impacted by the government's "prosperity tax" on companies with high chargeable income.

       At the time of writing, Maybank was up two sen to RM8.01, CIMB gained two sen to RM5.02, Hong Leong Bank added two sen to RM18.02 and Public Bank was unchanged at 4.02.

       Among telcos, Axiata gained two sen to RM3.86, Maxis rose two sen to RM4.61 and Digi lost one sen to RM4.26.

       In energy, Petronas Gas outshone its peers, rising 18 sen to RM16.58.

       The market breadth on the broader market remained negative with 270 decliners versus 150 gainers.

       Top actives in early morning trade were XOX unchanged at 3.5 sen, DNeX up 1.5 sen to 82 sen and Iconic flat at 46 sen.