KUALA LUMPUR (Oct 25): The FBM KLCI fell 1.06% at mid-morning today as market breadth turned negative in line with the slump at regional markets.

At 10am, the FBM KLCI fell 17.68 points to 1,672.36.

Losers thumped gainers by 699 to 64, while 170 counters traded unchanged. Volume was 658.5 million shares valued at RM452.4 million.

The top losers included Malaysian Pacific Industries Bhd, Nestle (M) Bhd, Dutch Lady Milk Industries Bhd, Fraser & Neave Holdings Bhd, KESM Industries Bhd, ViTrox Corp Bhd, Carlsberg Brewery Malaysia Bhd, Ajinomoto (M) Bhd, Hong Leong Financial Group Bhd and Heineken Malaysia Bhd.

The actives included Hibiscus Petroleum Bhd, Iris Corp Bhd, Frontken Corp Bhd, Prestariang Bhd, Nova MSC Bhd, My EG Services Bhd and Sapura Energy Bhd.

The gainers included Tenaga Nasional Bhd, Wong Engineering Corp Bhd and Malaysia-listed Hang Seng Index-linked put warrants.

Asian shares dived on Thursday as hundreds of billions of dollars haemorrhaged from global markets after a rout in tech stocks inflicted the largest daily decline on Wall Street since 2011, wiping out all its gains for the year, according to Reuters.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan fell 0.7%. Japan's Nikkei slumped more than 3% to hit a six-month trough and Australian shares skidded about 2% to a more than one-year low, it said.

Kenanga IB Research said Asian markets were mixed on Wednesday as traders mulled over the impact of tariffs after US big industrial companies admitted that they were facing rising costs.

It said on the local front, the FBM KLCI dropped 7.56 points (-0.45%) to close at 1,690.04, in tandem with the negative market breadth where 620 losers outnumbered 245 winners, while 348 counters unchanged.

"Technically, the outlook is increasingly bearish following as the index is now below the 1,700 psychological support to initiate yet another downtrend.

"With key momentum indicators still in the negative territory, support levels are identified at 1,658 (S1) and 1,614 (S2). Should market sentiment improves, key levels of resistance to look for are at 1,735 (R1) and 1,760 (R2) levels," it said.