Yesterday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 1.36 points or 0.02% to 8,764.49. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index dropped 0.95 of a point or 0.1% to 939.14, while the Nasdaq Composite Index dropped 7.02 points or 0.38% to 1,842.40.

At midday today, Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index lost 1.6% to 17,960.99, the South Korean Kospi down 1.14% to 1,377.42 and Japan's Nikkei 225 shed 0.93% to 9,773.84.

The Shanghai Composite Index lost 1.03% to 2,739.95, the Taiwan TAIEX Index fell 2.31% to 6,475.18 while the Singapore Straits Times Index declined 0.18% to 2,329.60.

At Bursa Malaysia, the KLCI reversed its earlier gains in the day and fell 0.31% or 3.34 points to 1,069.51 at 12.30pm. Trading volume was 671.3 million shares valued at RM559.36 million.

Losers beat gainers 346 to 186, while 227 counters traded unchanged.

Among the major losers this morning were Maybank, Petronas Gas, BCHB, BAT, AMMB, KLK, Gamuda, MMC Corp and Axiata.

Maybank and KLK fell 10 sen each to RM5.50 and RM11.90, Petgas lost 15 sen to RM9.75, while BCHB and Gamuda shed 5 sen each to RM9 and RM2.62.

BAT fell 50 sen to RM43.50, AMMB down 4 sen to RM3.32 and Axiata lost 1 sen to RM2.36.

The top gainers included Lafarge Malayan Cement and Tanjong Plc that gained 20 sen each to RM5.50 and RM13.40, Lay Hong and Muhibbah up 13 sen each to 53 sen and RM1.57, respectively while Help added 11 sen to RM1.50.

Other gainers included Genting and SapuraCrest which added 5 sen each to RM5.95 and RM1.57, Dialog Group up 6 sen to RM1.26 and Favelle Favco, up 9 sen to RM1.06.

KNM Group was the most actively traded counter with 58.1 million shares. The counter was unchanged at RM1.04.

Other actively traded stocks this morning included Oilcorp, Gula Perak, Hovid, Dialog, Saag, Scomi and DutaLand.

On the Bursa Malaysia derivatives exchange, crude palm oil futures for August delivery gained RM9 to RM2,469 per tonne and RM6 to RM2,475 per tonne for June delivery.

Light crude oil rose 43 cents to US$68.52 per barrel in electronic trading as at 1pm today.