KUALA LUMPUR: The domestic market stayed little changed in early morning trade as investors lacked direction amid the absence of fresh leads.
Wall Street markets ended the first half of 2022 in the previous session with its worst performance since the first quarter of 2020, when the global pandemic broke out.
It remains to be seen if the US economy will slip into a recession as some economists predict given the US Federal Reserve's aggressive interest rate hikes to quell soaring inflation.
At 9.05am, the FBM KLCI was down 0.02 point to 1,444.2. There were 149 decliners compared with 92 gainers.
Trading volume was 94.81 million shares valued at RM51.3mil.
According to Malacca Securities Research, further volatility was expected in risky sectors such as technology amid the rebalancing activities.
"Meanwhile, traders may focus on the healthcare sector due to the rising daily Covid-19 cases.
"Also, there might be some trading interest within the poultry related stocks as government set higher ceiling price for chicken," it added.
Among leading poultry-related counters, QL Resources gained two sen to RM5.22 and Leong Hup added 0.5 sen to 52.5 sen.
In the financial services sector, Maybank was up one sen to RM8.60, Public Bank rose one sne to RM4.38, CIMB climbed five sen to RM5.01 but Hong Leong Bank dipped six sen to RM20.40.
Press Metal
was down five sen to RM4.71, Petronas Chemicals rose three sen to RM9.03 and Petronas Gas gained six sen to RM16.50.
Top actives were Yong Tai unchanged at nine sen, Reach flat at 5.5 sen and Hibiscus Petroleum down 2.5 sen to 97.5 sen.
