KUALA LUMPUR (Jan 30): The FBM KLCI took a breather in the morning session today after it climbed a three-year high yesterday. The benchmark index dropped a margin of 0.2% at midday break, in line with soft performances in the regional bourses after the overnight drop on Wall Street.
At 12.30pm, the composite index slipped 2.84 points to 1867.68 points, weighed down by banking stocks and Petronas Gas Bhd.
The ringgit traded 0.2% higher at 3.8952 against the dollar after opening at 3.8870
Across the board, share prices were mostly lower as the current buying interest was mainly on big cap stocks. Losers outnumbered gainers by 556 to 242. Total traded volume was 1.05 billion for a value of RM664.2 million.
The top losers were Malaysian Pacific Industries Bhd, Dutch Lady Milk Industries Bhd and Hartalega Holdings Bhd, while gainers included Nestle (Malaysia) Bhd, Hengyuan Refining Co Bhd and Public Bank Bhd.
The top active counter was Sumatec Resources Bhd which dipped half a sen or 10.53% to 8.5 sen with 98.04 million shares transacted, valuing it at RM382.74 million. The counter has increased 13.33% in one year.
Reuters reported Asian stocks retreated from record highs on Tuesday, after a selloff in Apple shares knocked Wall Street lower, while the US dollar found support as U.S. bond yields climbed to near four-year highs.
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was down 0.5% after rising to an all-time high the previous day, Reuters said.
Reuters added Australian stocks shed 0.4%, South Korea’s KOSPI lost 0.1% and Japan’s Nikkei dropped 0.7%. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng slipped 0.2% and Shanghai was down 0.3%.
Reuters said the bearish sentiment in Asia followed a softer lead from Wall Street which had led a global equities rally over the past year, thanks to strong world growth fuelling higher corporate earnings and stock valuations.
According to UOB’s global economics and markets research, Asian markets are relatively data light, with no major scheduled release of economic data.
“For today, Asian currencies will continue to be driven by movements in the US dollar and US Treasuries yield.
“Thereafter tomorrow until Thursday, we will see the release of the series of monthly PMI updates for various countries across Asia. This will then give a good snapshot into the regional activity level at the start of the year,” UOB said in a note to clients today.