KUALA LUMPUR: Bursa Malaysia inched lower on Wednesday towards the 1,400-point psychological level as recession fears and a negative performance on Wall Street overnight dragged on sentiment.
At 9.05am, the FBM KLCI was down 4.34 points to 1,406.53. There was a negative market breadth with 172 decliners compared with 104 gainers.
Trading volume was 104.57 million shares valued at RM68.2mil.
Overnight, US markets failed to maintain a rebound as strong new home sales and consumer confidence data suggested the economy would be able to withstand further monetary tightening.
In Malaysia, investor attention is on the coming national budget, and speculation that a general election would soon follow.
Blue chips on the decline included PETRONAS Gas down 14 sen to RM16.30, IOI sliding three sen to RM3.77 and Axiata shedding three sen to RM2.70.
Press Metal
fell five sen to RM3.95 while PETRONAS Chemicals slipped two sen to RM8.33.
Among the leading gainers however, was Nestle up RM2.60 to RM132.60.
Despite a mild bounce on the Nasdaq, tech counters on Bursa continued to slide including MPI falling 50 sen to RM28.50 and D&O falling six sen to RM3.96.
Top actives on the market included PTRB up one sen to 38 sen, Velesto flat at 11.5 sen and SNS up 0.5 sen to 28.5 sen.
