KUALA LUMPUR: Bursa Malaysia experienced some selling pressure on Thursday as Asian equities sank on rising borrowing costs due to US Treasury yields hitting their highest since mid-2011.
Stellar US economic data sent bond prices falling across Asia and put pressure on emerging markets as the outflow of foreign funds accelerated.
Japan's Nikkei shaved 0.5%, Hong Kong's Hang Seng lost 1.7% and South Korea's Kospi shed 1.5%.
In Jakarta, the composite index lost 1.6%, the Philippines' PSE Composite Index lost 0.8% and Singapore's Straits Times Index dropped 1%.
At 12.30pm, the FBM KLCI was down 3.86 points to 1,792.44. Trading volume was 1.16 billion shares valued at RM1.04bil. There were twice as many decliners as gainers, 466 to 239, and 381 counters unchanged.
Banks, whose profit margins have a relationship to bond yields, held steady in the morning session. Four of the five biggest banks were unchanged while RHB slid one sen to RM5.39.
Top decliners on the FBM KLCI included Petronas Chemicals, shaving eight sen to RM9.42, Tenaga, losing six sen to RM15.52, and Maxis dropping seven sen to RM5.75.
Only four stocks showed advances including Press Metal
adding 15 sen to RM5.11, Hong Leong Financial Group rising 22 sen to RM19.46, Digi gaining three sen to RM4.80 and Sime Darby putting on two sen to RM2.65.
Some top losers on the wider market include KESM shedding 42 sen to RM14.78, MAHB dropping 17 sen to RM8.61 and Rapid, falling 14 sen to RM5.87.
On the oil market, prices eased slightly following the previous session's gains but sentiment remained bullish on expectations of further supply tightening.
WTI crude lost nine cents to US$76.32 a barrel while Brent crude also shed nine cents to US$86.20 a barrel.
The ringgit pulled back 0.2% against the strengthening US dollar at 4.1485. It strengthened 0.45% against the pound sterling at 5.3633 and 0.35% against the Singapore dollar at 3.0006.
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