KUALA LUMPUR: World stocks are under pressure as the deadline for public commentary on the US trade tariffs on Chinese imports passes later today.
Turmoil in emerging markets are also sparking contagion fears, taking Asian stocks to its sixth straight day of selling.
At Thursday's opening, markets in Asia were awash in red although Bursa Malaysia managed to hold on to slight gains following a dip in the early minutes of trade.
At 9.20am, the FBM KLCI was up 1.93 points to 1,797.43. Trading volume was 245.54 million shares valued at RM89.59mil. There were 179 gainers versus 172 decliners and 195 counters unchanged.
Among actively traded counters, Sumatec slid 0.5 sen to three sen , MyEG put on two sen to RM1.66 and AirAsia dropped seven sen to RM3.09.
Gaining counters included BAT, rising 42 sne to RM33, Edgenta climbing 12 sen to RM2.53 and Panasonic, advancing 12 sen to RM38.12.
On the losing end, Nestle slipped 20 sen to RM146.30, Heineken dropped eight sen to RM21.20 and Mulpha declined six sen to RM2.10.
Oil prices fell on Thursday as emerging market woes weighed on sentiment, while a deadline neared for a potential new round of US tariffs on another US$200bil of Chinese goods, Reuters reported.
WTI crude futures were down 25 cents at US$68.47 per barrel while Brent crude futures fell 27 cents to US$77 a barrel.
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