KUALA LUMPUR: Bursa Malaysia turned lower on Monday despite Chinese optimism rising after President Xi Jinping affirmed his support for the private sector.
Global equities were also more positive at the start of the week following last Friday's US corporate earnings results, which observers have said was a positive start to the season.
On the domestic scene, however, investors remain cautious over the upcoming Budget 2019, spending cuts and reduced forecasts for economic growth in the year ahead.
At midday break, the FBM KLCI was down 7.04 points to 1,725,10. Turnover was 1.21 billion shares valued at RM778.81mil. Decliners outnumbered advancers 441 to 227 and 313 counters were unchanged.
The telco sector remained under pressure as analysts predict strong headwinds given heightened regulation and competition moving forward. Axiata slid 15 sen to RM3.56 and Maxis dropped 14 sen to RM5.25. Digi lost two sen to RM4.28.
Banks also saw some selling pressure with Maybank sliding one sen to RM9.59, CIMB falling seven sen to RM5.95 and RHB losing eight sen to RM5.25.
On the advancing end, Genting Malaysia added seven sen to RM4.56, Genting rose seven sen to RM7.51 and IHH put on three sen to RM4.99.
The most actively traded stock, MyEG saw a strong rebound of 24 sen to RM1.37 in morning trade. The buying interest came after the company announced that it had received confirmation from the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission that was not linked to the corruption charges against former deputy prime minister Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi.
Datasonic, which had been linked to the same investigation and suffered a steep decline last Friday, lost a further 1.5 sen to 47 sen.
Meanwhile, Sapura Energy
rounded off the top three most active counters, rising 1.5 sen to 35 sen.
In oil markets, the US sanctions against Iran drew closer, lending prices a boost. WTI crude rose 20 cents to US$69.32 a barrel while Brent crude gained 23 cents to US$80.01.
The ringgit held firm against the US dollat at 4.1580. It slid 0.26% against the pounf serling at 5.4343 and 0.2% against the Singapore dollar at 3.0208.
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