FBM KLCI stays subdued amid growing headwinds

KUALA LUMPUR: Bursa Malaysia remained wobbly at the midday break with an overwhelming number of counters hovering in negative territory as investors took stock of the mounting headwinds against the equities market.

At 12.30pm, the FBM KLCI was down 2.89 points to 1,494.04 with Maybank leading the decline.

The country's largest bank by assets dropped six sen to RM7.89 amid ongoign foreign outflow as the US signalled interest rate hikes and the Omicron strain of Covid-19 virus triggered panic over another global lockdown.

CIMB however was seen bouncing higher after yesterday's decline, rising six sne to RM5.09.

In commodities plays, Press Metal dropped seven sen to RM5.25 while Petronas Chemicals shed three sen to RM8.47 amid the prospect of narrowing demand amid a disruption to production.

Meanwhile, TH Heavy Engineering was the top actively traded counter with 86.9 million shares traded. The oil and gas engineering firm plunged 4.5 sen to two sen as Bursa Securities rejected an appeal for an extended deadline to submit its regularisation plan and announced it would be suspended from trading on Dec 9.

Othe top actives were Impiana Hotels unchanged at eight sen and Inari falling 24 sen to RM3.86.

Meanwhile Asian markets was slightly higher on advances made in China's property market, although sentiment remained subdued on US discussions over the winding down of its bond-buying programme.

Japan's Nikkei was down 0.4% while South Korea's Kospi climbed 1.1%. China's main index was flat and Hong Kong's Hang Seng rose 0.2%. Australia's ASX200 was down 0.1%.