KUALA LUMPUR (April 3): The FBM KLCI remained in negative territory at mid-morning today, as market breadth was weaker, tracking regional losses.

At 10am, the FBM KLCI dipped 1.44 points to 1856.91.

Losers led gainers by 420 to 114, while 267 counters traded unchanged. Volume was 400.67 million shares valued at RM200.59 million.

The top losers included Nestle (M) Bhd, Dutch Lady Milk Industries Bhd, Petron Malaysia Refining & Marketing Bhd, Malaysian Pacific Industries Bhd, Hengyuan Refining Company Bhd and S P Setia Bhd.

The actives included Sapura Energy Bhd, Sino Hua-An International Bhd, Hibiscus Petroleum Bhd, NWP Holdings Bhd and PUC Bhd.

The gainers included Allianz Malaysia Bhd, Rohas Tecnic Bhd, MSM Malaysia Holdings Bhd, MISC Bhd, Public Bank Bhd and Malaysia Airports Holdings Bhd.

Asian stocks extended a global selloff and the yen rose on Tuesday as investors fled for safety as an escalating trade spat between the United States and China and a renewed slump in tech shares such as Amazon.com sapped investor confidence, according to Reuters.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan fell 0.28%, pressured by the tech sector, it said.

Hong Leong IB Research in a traders' brief said market sentiments could stay negative amid the trade war tensions and market participants are likely to further reduce their positions in equities and search for safe haven assets such as US 10-year bond, gold or Japanese yen.

"Tracking the softer Wall Street performance, we anticipate selling pressure may pile up on the local bourse, resulting in further sell down on FBM Small Cap and FBM ACE.

"Also, we think investors may opt for defensive stocks such as consumer and REITs over the near term," it said.