KUALA LUMPUR: The domestic market stood little chance of a rebound with the dour mood caused by the recent turmoil in the technology sector and investors taking profit before the Lunar New Year holidays.
At 12.30pm, the benchmark FBM KLCI was down 8.48 points to 1,550.49, with much of the losses stemming from the sell-off the YTL stocks.
Investors holding on to YTL Power shares were rattled by fears its data centre project would be impacted by news China's DeepSeek had succeeded in developing an AI model with only a fraction of the computing power of traditional AI systems.
YTL Power dove 28 sen to RM2.94, extending a downtrend on the counter that began last Friday, while parent company YTL Corp dropped 12 sen to RM1.81.
Meanwhile, the broader market was submerged with 568 decliners compared to 222 gainers.
Trading turnover was 1.5 billion shares changing hands for RM1.12bil.
Among the laggards, MPI shed 60 sen to RM22.16, PIE Industrial dropped 52 sen to RM30.20 and United Plantations lost 22 sen to RM30.50.
Of actives, YTL Power tropped the list with 56.25 million shares done.
NationGate followed after losing 16 sen to RM1.72 with 41.42 million shares changing hands and YTL Corp slid 12 sen to RM1.81 with 40.07 million shares trade.
In regional markets, Japan's Nikkei fell 1.18% to 39,099 and China's composite index slipped 0.06% to 3,250.
Hong Kong's Hang Seng rose 0.l4% to 20,225. Singapore's Straits Times added 0.11% to 3,801.
