KUALA LUMPUR: A plunge in Chinese equities to four-year lows precipitated a widespread fall in Asian markets on Thursday.
The US dollar continued to gain in strength on the revelation that the US Federal Reserve was looking to further raise interest rates in the remainder of the year, raising fears of more capital outflows from emerging markets.
At market close, Japan's Nikkei fell 0.8%, South Korea's Kospi dropped 0.9% and Hong Kong's Hang Seng slipped marginally by 0.03%.
At 5pm, the FBM KLCI managed keep its decline to a low 2.58 points to 1,738.01. Turnover was two billion shares worth RM2.03bil. There were 338 gainers versus 472 decliners and 369 counters unchanged.
Sime Darby Plantation
weighed down the index with a 10 sen slide to RM5.13.
IHH Plantation also fell, losing eight sen to RM5.07.
Maxis, which revealed its latest quarterly earnings today, picked up one sen to RM5.51.
Banks were mostly higher, led by Public Bank adding four sen to RM25.02, Maybank edging one sen higher to RM9.60, Hong Leong Bank rising four sen to RM20.72 and RHB putting on two sen to RM5.31.
Among the most actively traded counters, MRCB slipped two sen to 77.5 following the jump in the previous session on news that the LRT3 project would resume.
Hibiscus Petroleum shed three sen to RM1.25 while My EG dropped four sen to RM1.50.
Oil markets fell on Thursday as building US crude inventories put downwards pressure on prices. WTI crude dropped 41 cents to US$69.34 a barrel while Brent crude fell 64 cents to US$79.41 a barrel.
In currencies, the ringgit was 0.15% lower against the US dollar at 4.1575. It strengthened 0.1% against the pound sterling at 5.4499 and 0.1% against the Singapore dollar at 3.0175.
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