KUALA LUMPUR: Bursa Malaysia tumbled in the morning session as the US-China trade talks came at risk of being derailed while US corporations cautioned over earnings being eroded by a slowing Chinese economy.
At 12.30pm, the FBM KLCI was down 7.84 points to 1,689.66. Trading volume was 1.25 billion shares valued at RM776.02mil. There were 421 decliners versus 226 advancers and 338 counters unchanged.
Looking at the technical charts, the local benchmark index remained unable to see through a sustained recovery short of convincingly breaching the 1,700-point barrier.
Asian shares were lower on Tuesday as the US pushed forward criminal charges on China's Huawei in a move that observers fear might complicate trade talks between Washington and Beijing later this week.
This came on the back of more evidence that China's economy was slowing as US bellwhethers Caterpillar and Nvidia warned of softer Chinese demand.
Most hard hit on the KLCI was Petronas Chemicals, which experienced a 18 sen drop to RM8.44. Axiata slid 14 sen to RM4, KL Kepong fell 30 sen to RM24.42, IOI trimmed six sen to RM4.59 and MISC slid eight sen to RM6.62.
Genting counters were among the few gainers in the morning session as analysts posted a more optimistic outlook on the Malaysian operations.
"Despite the overall negative developments for its Malaysia subsidiary, core operations remain stable as the facilities opened under the Genting Integrated Tourism Plan (GITP) will continue to yield strong results," said RHB research on Tuesday.
Ending at midday, Genting was up seven sen to RM6.88 while Genting Malaysia rose four sen to RM3.21.
Sapura Energy
was the most actively traded counter on Bursa Malaysia, shedding 1.5 sen to 27 sen on the back of news that its shareholders had approved an upstream joint venture plan with Austria’s OMV Aktiengesellschaft.
Eduspec was also heavily traded on news of its private proposed placement, although the share price was unchanged at two sen at midday.
Oil markets were slightly higher as the US imposed sanction on Venezuela's state oil company although fears of an economic slowdown put a lid on prices.
US crude rose 12 cents to US$52.11 a barrel and Brent crude gained 10 cent sto US$60.03 a barrel.
On the forex market, the ringgit was trading 0.1% lower against the greenback at 4.1144 and 0.15% lower against the Singapore dollar at 3.0407. It was unchanged against the pound sterling at 5.4128.
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