KUALA LUMPUR: The local market descended along with other global markets as investors took money off the table while awaiting a potential trade deal between Washington and Beijing.
At 12.30pm, the FBM KLCI fell 8.19 points to 1,716.39. Trading volume was 1.47 billion shares valued at RM880.65mil. There were 600 decliners versus 213 advancers and 291 counters unchanged.
With a decision yet to be made regarding additional tariff hikes, investors are taking caution short of any concrete development.
However, the Shanghai Composite Index, which surged 5.6% in the previous session, managed to eke out a slight gain of 0.4% by midday. Other markets were less optmistic with Japan's Nikkei dropping 0.5% and Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index falling 0.5%.
On Bursa Malaysia, top active counters were Econpile falling 7.5 sen to 45.5 sen, Sapura Energy
losing 0.5 sen to 31.5 sen and Bumi Armada dropping 0.5 sen to 19.5 sen.
KLCI-linked stocks leading price action include Petronas Dagangan falling RM1.48 to RM26.92, Maxis sliding 13 sen to RM5.40 and IHH slipping seven sen to RM5.68.
Gainers included Ambank adding three sen to RM4.58, Genting gaining four sen to RM7.44 and Petronas Chemicals climbing seven sen to RM9.23.
Crude oil prices continued their descent after losing over 3% in the previous session after US President Donald Trump called on Opec to relax efforts in propping up prices.
US crude fell another 36 cents to US$55.12 a barrel while Brent crude dropped 24 cents to US$64.52.
Meanwhile, the ringgit also saw mild profit-taking, losing 0.14% against the US dolalr to 4.0728, 0.1% against the Singapore dollar to 3.0161 and was unchanged against the pound sterling at 5.3503.
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