KUALA LUMPUR: The FBM KLCI tracked Wall Street's overnight rout as the trade negotiations between Washington and Beijing came in danger of collapsing.
At 12.30pm, the FBM KLCI was down 7.22 points to 1,632.15. Trading volume was 1.39 billion shares valued at RM981.1mil. There were 503 decliners versus 210 gainers and 324 counters unchanged.
Most of the KLCI-linked counters were in the red, led by Petronas Chemicals dropping 10 sen to RM8.95, Axiata sliding seven sen to RM4.57 and MISC falling 12 sen to RM6.78.
Among the few gainers were Ambank rising 12 sen to RM4.56, RHB adding nine sen to RM5.78 and Digi adding five sen to RM4.85.
The most active counters were IFCAMSC rising 3.5 sen to 50.5 sen, Bumi Armada
unchangd at 21.5 sen and Ekovest down 0.5 sen at 90.5 sen.
Meanwhile, regional markets wallowed in the red on news of US President Donald Trump's decision.
As investors awaited the outcome of Chinese vice premier Liu He's visit to Washington on Friday, markets fell in nervous anticipation.
The Shanghai Composite Index fell as much as 1.7% in early trade but retraced losses to 0.1% by midday. The CSI300 Inds simiarly erased most losses to end the morning 0.2% lower.
Hong Kong's Hang Seng was 0.7% in the red, South Korea's Kospi was 0.1% lower and Japan's Nikkei Index slumped 1.7%.
Oil prices fell as investors worried over global demand amid the heightened risk to the economy.
US crude slid 50 cents to US$61.90 a barrel and Brent crude dropped 41 cents to US$70.29 a barrel.
In currencies, the ringgit was flat against the US dollar at 4.1467. It was 0.2% higher against the pound sterling at 5.4213 and flat against the Singapore dollar at 3.0474.
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