KUALA LUMPUR: Blue chips fell in early Tuesday trade as the key Asian markets were in a sea of red after the steep overnight fall on Wall Street.
At 9.49am, the FBM KLCI was down 10.77 points or 0.63% to 1,685.37. Turnover was 492.14 million shares valued at RM265.02mil. There were 90 gainers, 465 losers and 188 counters unchanged.
Asian shares skidded after a rout in tech stocks put Wall Street to the sword, while a sharp drop in oil prices and political risks in Europe pushed the dollar to 16-month highs as investors dumped riskier assets, Reuters reported.
MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan dropped 1.7% to a 1-1/2 week trough, with Australian shares sinking 1.6%. Japan's Nikkei dived 3.1% led by losses in electric machinery makers and suppliers of Apple's iPhone parts.
KESM and MPI fell 30 sen each to RM10.44 and RM12.10 while Vitrox lost 18 sen to RM7.52. Inari fell eight sen to RM1.80 in active trade.
IOI Corp lost 16 sen to RM4.33 after the weak first quarter results.
Secure Metric, which made its debut, surged 28.5 sen to 53.5 sen with 63 million shares done. Its offer price was 25 sen.
Sapura Engery fell 1.5 sen to 36.5 sen.
US light crude oil fell 82 cents to US$59.11 and Brent lost 72 cents to US$69.40.
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