KUALA LUMPUR: The local bourse started the trading week on a slide on Monday as equity markets continued to fall on the prospect of a trade war sparked off by US President Donald Trump's planned steel tariffs.
Amid a sea of red in Asian markets, the FBM KLCI fell six points lower in the first 10 minutes of trade to 1,849.99.
Turnover was 156.82 million shares with a value of RM68.03mil. There were 168 decliners to 141 advancers and 233 counters unchanged.
Among actively traded counters was Notion VTec, which rose three sen to 73 sen; Daya, sliding half a sen to four sen; and PUB, gaining one sen to 25 sen.
Leading the gainers, Nestle rose 20 sen to RM126.10. However, Kenanga Research said its share price may have run ahead of its fundemantels and maintained a sell call on the stock.
"While we still like Nestle for its solid brand name and defensiveness of its business, we deem the 5-6% average earnings growth and dividend yield of 2-3% as unattractive for such valuation," it said on Monday.
Meanwhile, Top Glove was on the rise, gaining eight sen to RM9.90 while British American Tobacco put on six sen to RM27.74.
Press Metal Aluminium took a hit, falling 41 sen to Rm5.06 amid reports that Malaysia will be impacted by the steel and aluminium tariffs imposed by Trump.
JF Apex Research said in its morning note that it expects steel and aliminium counters to be among stocks to watch on Monday.
Other stocks on the decline include Hong Leong Financial Group, dropping 36 sen to RM18.74 and Hengyuan, falling 40 sen to RM11.78.
Oil prices rose on Monday ahead of a meeting between Opec and US shale firms in Houston, giving rise to expectations that the oil producers will discuss further how to clear a global oil glut, Reuters reported.
WTI crude gained 31 cents to US$61.56 a barrel while Brent crude added 37 cents to US$64.77 a barrel.
In currencies, the ringgit rose a quarter percent against the greenback to 3.8937 as the US dollar faces negative sentiment over Trump's protectionist measures.
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