The overnight fall at Wall Street yesterday did little to help already worried Asian investors, as expectedly declining existing US home sales data was released.
Nomura will sell about 800 million shares, or almost 30% of the stock outstanding, in Japan and overseas between Oct 13-15 in its largest stock sales ever.
At the regional markets, Japan's Nikkei 225 fell 2.56% to 10,273.82, South Korea's Kospi fell 1.54% to 1,667.77, the Shanghai Composite Index lost 1.36% to 2,814.85, Hong Kong's Hang Seng declined 0.61% to 20,923.12 and the Singapore Straits Times Index shed 0.21% to 2,661.81.
The Taiwanese TAIEX Index, however, added 0.38% to 7,351.93.
On the local front, FBM KLCI declined 0.32% or 3.91 points to 1,214.15 at midday. Trading volume was relatively thin with 381.65 million shares valued at RM448.65 million.
Losers led gainers by 333 to 190, while 221 counters traded unchanged.
Crude palm oil futures for the third month delivery rose RM22 to RM2,137 per tonne at midday, while crude oil advanced 58 cents to US$66.47 per barrel.
Among the major losers at midday on the Bursa Malaysia were United Plantations that fell 40 sen to RM13, Tanjong Plc down 16 sen to RM14.92, IJM Corp and Proton down 10 sen each to RM6.50 and RM4.15.
Meanwhile, Parkson fell 9 sen to RM5.16 and CIMB lost 8 sen to RM11.16.
OilCorp continued to slide for the third consecutive day and fell 2 sen to 17 sen, with 26.89 million shares done after it failed to meet loan interest repayment obligations on Sept 17.
KNM Group was the most actively traded stock at midday with 31.4 million shares done. The counter added 1.5 sen to 78.5 sen. Other actively traded stocks included DutaLand, Salcon, Emico, Insas and Notion.
F&N was the top gainer at midday and was up 24 sen to RM10.50, P.I.E Industrial added 14 sen to RM4.26, Panasonic and LFE Corp rose 12 sen each to RM12.52 and 29 sen while LPI Capital gained 10 sen to RM12.38.
NSTP and Media Prima continued to advance after Macquarie Research had upgraded the stocks to outperform. NSTP added 9 sen to RM2.25 while Media Prima gained 5 sen to RM1.55.