KUALA LUMPUR (Aug 24): Public Bank Bhd fell as much as 4% as foreign selling led to broader market losses.

Shares of Public Bank (fundamental: 2.8; valuation: 1.8) fell to its lowest so far today at RM17.06 before cutting losses. At 12.30pm, the third-largest decliner across the exchange settled at RM17.30 with some five million shares done.

The FBM KLCI fell 27.93 points or 1.8% to 1,546.74. Earlier, the ringgit depreciated to a fresh level against the US dollar at 4.2620.

"The weak ringgit currency, which traded at fresh 17-year lows, was confirmation of further fund outflows but local fund buying support managed to absorb some of the selling pressure on key index heavyweights.

"The FBM KLCI’s astonishing resilience last Friday, when most global bourses were down, will be tested again this week on the back of sharp pullback in US equities and sustained fall in our foreign reserves," TA Securities Holdings Bhd wrote in a note today.

(Note: The Edge Research's fundamental score reflects a company’s profitability and balance sheet strength, calculated based on historical numbers. The valuation score determines if a stock is attractively valued or not, also based on historical numbers. A score of 3 suggests strong fundamentals and attractive valuations.)