KUALA LUMPUR: Bursa Malaysia fell in early Monday trade, in line with the key Asian markets, while VS Industry plunged in active trade after it issued a profit warning, however the slide was offset by Public Bank.
At 9.46am, the FBM KLCI was down 2.32 points or 0.14% to 1,659.64. Turnover was 325.53 million shares valued at RM146.77mil. There were 84 gainers, 388 losers and 202 counters unchanged.
Asian share markets started the week on a cautious footing after weak economic data from China and Europe added to evidence of cooling global growth and reinforced anxiety over the impact of international trade frictions on business and profits, Reuters reported.
MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was little changed while Japan's Nikkei was up 0.1% in early trade. US stock futures were also almost flat.
On Wall Street on Friday, the S&P 500 lost 1.91% to 2,599.95, marking its lowest close since April 2.
Kenanga Research said in view of heightened geopolitical uncertainties coupled with poor global stocks performance as of recent, we maintain our view that the KLCI will continue its tepid trading in the short-term.
“Given persistent lacklustre technical indicators as displayed by the bearish MACD and flat-lining of RSI and Stochastic, the local index will likely trending towards 1,650 (S1), where a break below could trigger sell-down towards the 1,615 (S2),” it said.
Conversely, resistance levels are capped at 1,700 (R1) and 1,750 (R2), the research house said.
VS Industry tumbled by the maximum 30% or 35 sen to 82 sen with 15.69 million shares done.
Vitrox lost 28 sen to RM6.24 and MPI lost 20 sen to RM10.
F&N fell 48 sen to RM32.72, BAT 46 sen to RM35.56 but Nestle added 50 sen to RM145.60.
Genting Plantation lost 33 sen to RM9.45, Aeon Credit
fell 20 sen to RM16 and Padini 19 sen to RM3.28.
Petronas Gas rose 68 sen to RM19.62 and Petronas Chemical 29 sen to RM9.41.
Kian Joo climbed 14 sen to RM2.77 while Public Bank added 10 sen to RM24.84 and DKSH five sen to RM2.21.
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