KUALA LUMPUR: Bursa Malaysia moved into negative territory on Wednesday as initial enthusiasm over the latest US-China trade truce was overtaken by fresh concerns over the US threat of tariffs on additional European goods.
Dealers said investors decided to take some money off the table as worries around slowing global growth mounted after the release of weak economic data from China.
At 5pm, the FBM KLCI fell 0.95 points, or 0.06% at 1,690.05. The benchmark index opened 1.75 points lower at 1,689.25 this morning.
In the broader market, losers outpaced gainers 456 to 395 while 420 counters were unchanged. Turnover stood at three billion shares worth RM1.82bil.
At Bursa Malaysia, the top losers was Carlsberg, which fell 46 sen to RM25.50, Chin Tek declined 26 sen to RM6.54, British American Tobacco
shed 14 sen to RM28.80 and Timecom fell 13 sen to RM8.97.
The gainers included F&N, KESM and Latitude. Among the actively-traded stocks,Sumatec jumped 250%, or 3.5 sen with 563.64 million shares traded.
Among the heavyweights, Tenaga Nasional added two sen to RM14.24, Maybank fell one sen to RM8.967, CIMB shed eight sen to RM5.36 and Public Bank closed flat at RM23.
Meanwhile, Reuters reported that Chinese shares fell on Wednesday amid waning investor optimism over progress in trade negotiations between the US and China, and as new data from China’s services sector added to signs of a domestic slowdown.
At the close, the Shanghai Composite index was down 0.94% at 3,015.26 while the blue-chip CSI300 index fell 1.11%.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index was down 20.42 points or 0.07% at 28,855.14. The Hang Seng China Enterprises index ended down 0.54% at 10,922.41
South Korea’s Kospi index closed down 26.00 points, or 1.23%, at 2,096.02, falling for a fourth straight session.
Japan’s benchmark Nikkei share average ended 0.5% lower at 21,638.16 points, just below its two-month high touched on Tuesday.
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