KUALA LUMPUR: Bursa Malaysia is performing under a cloud as sentiment in Asian markets has been dampened by strong retail sales data from the US and jitters over earnings contraction in Corporate America.
Compounding the negative mood was US President Donald Trump's remarks overnight that the trade war with China would have a "long way to go".
The FBM KLCI, which has been undergoing a consolidation phase, weakened further in Wednesday's morning session as it dropped 6.96 points to 1,661.98. Twenty-four of the 30 index-linked stocks showed share price contraction.
Leading the market lower, Petronas chemicals lost 25 sen to RM7.99 while Tenaga shed 12 sen to RM13.66.
This marks a second consecutive day of selling for Tenaga, which was among the leading laggards in the previous session.
It was a similar story on the broader market as the stock exchange showed overwhelmingly negative breadth with 477 decliners to 199 gainers and 385 counters unchanged. Trading volume was 2.19 billion shares valued at RM970mil.
Amid the gloom, i-Stone stole the spotlight on its foray into the stock exchange, surging nine sen or 56% to 25 sen on heavy trading interest.
With 406.49 million shares crossing, the manufacturing automation provider was the most active counter in the morning session.
Other stocks seeing active interest included KNM dropping 0.5 sen to 39.5 sen and Sapura Energy
losing 0.5 sen to 30.5 sen.
Over in regional markets, the Shanghai Composite Index was flat while the CSI300 Index rose 0.2% and Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index slid 0.3%.
Japan's Nikkei Index was down 0.3% and South Korea's Kospi Index dove 1.1%.
Oil prices were generally stable on Wednesday after a sharp fall in the previous session
Brent crude, which skidded 3.2% in the previous session bounced up 11 cents to US$64.46 a barrel.
US crude put on three cents to US$57.59 a barrel after having fallen 3.3% previously.
In currencies, the ringgit was 0.1% lower against the greenback at 4.1140, 0.2% weaker against the pound sterling at 5.1075 and flat against the Singapore dollar at 3.0239.
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