Bursa falls sharply on one-off tax, higher stamp duty

KUALA LUMPUR: Bursa Malaysia skidded sharply in early morning trade as investors reacted to the government's announcement that there would be a one-off special tax implemented on large companies.

In the tabling of Budget 2022 last Friday, Finance Minister Tengku Zafrul Abdul Aziz said companies would be subject to a "prosperity tax" whereby the first RM100mil in taxable earnings will be charged at 24% while the remainder will be taxed at 33%.

Meanwhile, higher transaction costs from higher stamp duty on contract notes also weighed on the market sentiment.

At the open, the FBM KCLI plunged over 16 points to 1,545.99. The index continued its decline to a low of 1,536.08 before finding some support.

At 9.10am, the benchmark was 20.75 points lower at 1,541.56.

The market breadth on the market was overwhelmingly negative with 10 times more decliners than gainers while on the blue-chip FBM KLCI, 26 of the constituent counters were in the red.

Bank counters, which would be subject to the special tax, pulled sharply lower. CIMB was down 15 sen to RM5.07, Hong Leong Bank dropped 58 sen to RM17.88, Public Bank dropped 10 sen to RM4.07 and Maybank was down four sen to RM8.01.

In other sectors, Petronas Chemicals was down nine sen to RM8.60, MISC shaved 10 sen to RM6.97 and Sime Darby Plantation dropped seven sen to RM3.94.

Telcos fared relatively better as investors had been tentative over a possible reimplementation of the Goods and Services Tax. Axiata was down eight sen to RM3.87 while Digi fell two sen to RM4.21 and Maxis rose one sen to RM4.68.

Meanwhile, AirAsia X shed 1.5 sen to 7.5 on news that the airline had entered PN17 status after its external auditor Messrs Ernst & Young Plt expressed a disclaimer of opinion on its audited financial statement.

The airline was the second most heavily traded counter with 40.65 million stocks exchanging hands.

Leading the most actives list was MMAG unchanged at 10.5 sen with 68.71 million units traded and KNM rounded off the list, down 0.5 sen to 20 sen, with 32.57 million shares done.

Despite the sharp pullback, Kenanga Research noted some positives for the market moving forward underpinned by the extension of the sales tax exemption on passenger vehicles until end-June 2022 and the various tax incentives granted for electric vehicles as well as the RPGT waiver for property disposals after six years.

According to the research house, the first support threshold rests at 1,550. A break below, however, would take the index to the next support line of 1,510 before it staged a technical rebound.

Malacca Securities Research projected that there would be knee-jerk selling pressure on the FBM KLCI and broader market.

However, it expects bargain-hunting activities to emerge once the market players look beyond the one-off tax and focuses on the economic recovery moving forward.

The brokerage expects support to be pegged along 1,515-1,530.