KUALA LUMPUR: Bursa Malaysia continued its decline on Thursday as recent revelations over the national debt and the ongoing trade conflict between the US and China weighed on investor sentiment.
At 12.30pm, the FBM KLCI was down 21.75 points to 1,782.50, having retraced some losses since dropping to as low as 1,768.18 in the early morning session.
Trading volume was 1.87 billion shares with a value of RM1.89bil. There were 696 decliners versus 197 advancers and 333 counters unchanged.
Maybank led the decline, dropping 48 sen to RM10.20 and shaving 8.5 points off the index.
Other banks also fell with Public Bank falling 20 sen to RM24.90, CIMB sliding 10 sen to RM6.12 and RHB slipping two sen to RM5.38.
Hong Leong Bank bucked the trend, rising 12 sen to RM19.02.
Axiata, which experienced a steep fall in the previous session, continued to move lower by 12 sen to RM4.31.
Tenaga Nasional also weighed, losing 20 sen to RM14.74.
Nestle, which had been on a rise of late saw a further retracement, losing RM1.30 to RM147.50 while BAT declined RM1.14 to RM32.90.
Oil prices slipped on speculation that OPEC may step up efforts to counter oil supply disruptions in Venezuela and Iran.
WTI crude fell 27 cents to US$71.58 a barrel while Brent crude dropped 38 cents to US$79.42 a barrel.
In currencies, the ringgit was marginally weaker against the greenback at 3.9845. It was 0.15% weaker against the pound sterling at 5.3260 and 0.24% against the Singapore dollar at 2.9677.
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