KUALA LUMPUR: Bursa Malaysia saw profit-taking after the last two days of gains as the US trade tariffs on US$200bil of Chinese imports loomed.
Public comment on the trade tariffs end on Sept 5, paving the way for the Trump administration to implement the taxes.
Following a flat finish on Wall Street overnight, Asian markets traded cautiously with slight gains in markets outside of Japan on the recent US-Mexico trade deal.
At 12.30pm, the FBM KLCI was down 9.65 points to 1,817.25. Trading volume was 1.53 billion shares valued at RM1.04bil. There were 505 decliners versus 329 advancers and 316 counters unchanged.
IHH Healthcare slipped the most in morning trade following the release of its quarterly earnings yesterday evening. The counter shed 10 sen to RM5.53.
Hong Leong Bank, which rose in the previous session on a positive quarterly performance saw some investors take money off the table, dropping 16 sen to RM20.14.
Axiata also took a step back from previous gains, sliding four sen to RM4.78. Digi lost nine sen to RM4.69 and Maxis fell five sen to RM5.80.
Among actively traded stocks, Bumi Armada
skidded 11 sen to 56 sen as the impairment for its Armada Kraken vessel led to a net loss of over half a billion ringgit in Q2.
Elsoft, meanwhile, put on 14 sen to an all-time high of RM3.35 on news of a proposed share split and bonus issue.
Ideal United Bintang International continued on its record-breaking rally, putting on 11 sen to RM1.69 after posting a five-fold increase in Q2 net profit.
Oil markets remained stable as the prospect of tighter supply from sanctions in Iran and decreasing production from Venezuela gave prices a lift.
WTI and Brent each slipped two cents to US$68.51 and US$75.93 a barrel respectively.
In currencies, the ringgit slid 0.15% against the greenback to 4.1030. It slid 0.11% against the Singapore dollar at 3.0085 and strengthened 0.09% against the pound sterling at 5.2811.
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