Foreign funds punish KLCI, key Asian markets skid

KUALA LUMPUR:  Foreign funds battered Malaysia's stock market on Wednesday sending the FBM KLCI down as much as 3.47% in the worst one-day loss in recent years, when compared with the regional bourses following the political turmoil in Italy.

At 3.48pm, the KLCI was down 55.41 points or 3.12% to 1,720.43. It hit a low of 1,714 earlier -- down 61 points -- when European bourses opened for trading.

Turnover was 2.92 billion shares valued at RM3.17bil. Losers hammered gainers 1,057 to 100 and 235 counters unchanged.

This was the longest streak in recent years that Bursa Malaysia has been hammered by foreign funds, starting on May 14 when the markets reopened after the Pakatan Harapan coalition swept to power on May 9.

Since then, the coalition government had already unveiled steps to review mega construction projects, scrapped the GST effective on June 1 and also announced the government debt of RM1 trillion. It also unveiled the steps to tackle the government's fiscal deficit while trying to control the massive fallout from the debt-ridden 1MDB.