KUALA LUMPUR: The selling in domestic equities continued on Wednesday as the cautious undertone remained ahead of the release of US July inflation data.
At 9.05am, the FBM KLCI was down 4.51 points to 1,493.17. There were 180 decliners compared with 83 gainers on the market for an overall weak market performance.
Trading volume was 112.76 million shares valued at RM42.59mil
"With the Wall Street overnight ended negative, we opine that the investors may stay sidelines for the session.
"Upside potential might be capped by the elevating global risks such as China-Taiwan tension and heightened inflationary pressures environment.
"However, traders are likely to position themselves selectively ahead of the August reporting month as foreign buying remains positive over the past few days," said Malacca Securities Research in a report.
Leading laggards in the early morning session included Press Metal
down six sen to RM4.63, Sime Darby Plantation sliding three sen to RM4.42 and Public bank falling two sen to RM4.64.
PETRONAS Chemicals rose 10 sen to RM8.80 and Maybank crept two sen to higher to RM8.91.
Meanwhile, the revenue warning from Micron added to the selling pressure on chip stocks. MPI dropped 80 sen to RM31.10, Vitrox fell 20 sen to RM7.20 and Unsimse shed 11 sne to RM2.85.
Top actives were G3 down 0.5 sen to 3.5 sen, Cypark sliding two sen to 44.5 sen and Green Packet unchanged at 5.5 sen.
