KUALA LUMPUR: Foreign selling of bank stocks dragged the FBM KLCI to the weakest close since Dec 21 last year, making Malaysia's stock market the worst performer in Asia.
At 5pm, the KLCI was down 15.27 points or 0.91% to 1,664.63 and year-to-date, it is down 1.53%.
Turnover was 2.54 billion shares valued at RM2.32bil. Decliners beat advancers by more than two to one, with 638 losers, 266 gainers and 355 counters unchanged.
Public Bank fell 30 sen to RM24.20 and erased 1.8 points from the KLCI, CIMB lost 11 sen to RM5.28 and wiped out 1.62 points while Maybank gave up six sen to RM9.47 and shed 1.02 points. AmBank lost four sen to RM4.46 but RHB Bank gained two sen to RM5.58.
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's winning streak hit a bump, falling 32 sen to RM16.88.
Despite the jump in crude oil prices, Petronas Dagangan fell the most, down 34 sen to RM25.90, Petronas Chemical five sen to RM9.20 while Petronas Gas was unchanged ast RM17.74. Dialog shed one sen to RM3.17.
US light crude oil ralied 68 cents to US$56.75 and Brent jumped 80 cents to US$66.54. Saudi Arabia plans to cut its crude oil exports in April to below 7 million barrels per day (bpd), while keeping its output "well below" 10 million bpd, a Saudi official said on Monday, as the kingdom seeks to drain a supply glut and support oil prices, Reuters reported.
Tenaga lost eight sen to RM12.62, Sime Darby lost three sen to RM2.15, MAHB nine sen to RM7.66 while Genting was down seven sen to RM6.98 and GentingM one sen lower at RM3.43.
Glove makers also came under some selling pressure with Top Glove down 14 sen to RM4.45 and Hartalagea 24 sen lower at RM4.75.
As for telcos, Axiata lost eight sen to RM4.08 and wiped out 1.12 points, Digi shed five sen to RM4.51 and Maxis unchanged at RM5.36.
Amtek plunged 25 sen to 12 sen as the company faces delisting risk by end of the month.
Dayang's winning streak came to a halt as investors took profit and this saw the share price slide six sen to RM1.52. It was the most active with 127.81 million shares done.
IW City showed it still had legs to rally, up 3.5 sen to 74 sen.
Crude palm oil fell RM9 to RM2,116 per tonne. Sime Darby Plantation, IOI Corp and KL Kepong were flat at RM5.10, RM4.51 and RM24.78 respectively. PPB Group fell 12 sen to RM18.38.
The ringgit weakened against the US dollar, down 0.03% to 4.0910, fell 0.33% to the euro to 4.5997 and shed 0.08% to the Singapore dollar at 3.0102. However, the ringgit gained against a weakening pound sterling by 0.73% to 5.3170.
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