KUALA LUMPUR: The local bourse continued its slide in morning trade as the trade war triggered a sell-off in Chinese markets that re-opened after a long weekend today.
US President Donald Trump said overnight that the US would impose a 10% tariff on US$200bil of Chinese goods in its response to Beijing raising tariffs on US$50bil in US goods.
At 12.30pm, the FBM KLCI was down 11.41 points to 1,732.92. Trading volume was 1.15 billion shares with a value of RM943.23mil. There were 474 decliners verus 230 gainers and 362 counters unchanged.
Financial heavyweights led the morning decline, with Maybank dropping 17 sen to RM9.38 and Public Bank falling 20 sen to RM23.80.
Hong Leong Bank dipped two sen to RM18.68 while RHB bucked the trend with an eight sen gain to RM5.75.
Digi slipped nine sen to RM4.38, Maxis slid six sen to RM5.65 while Axiata lost four sen to RM4.37.
Meanwhile, consumer giant Nestle rose 90 sen to RM147.90.
On the broader market, Cahya Mata Sarawak fell 21 sen to RM2.32 while Panasonic dropped 48 sen to RM7.90 and BAT lost 16 sen to RM35.60.
MyEG rose 3.5 sen to RM1 in active trade while Kretam rebounded from the previous session's heavy selling, rising 1.5 sen to 47.5 sen.
Top Glove continued its ascent, gaining 22 sen to RM11.62.
Oil markets were also shaken by the escalating trade dispute, compounded by expectations that Opec and Russia will gradually increase output.
WTI crude fell 42 cents to US$65.43 a barrel while Brent crude dropped 57 cents to US$74.77 a barrel.
The ringgit was little changed against the US dollar at 3.9992 and the SIngapore dollar at 2.9564 but it weakened 0.24% against the pound sterling at 5.3012.
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