KUALA LUMPUR: There was strong selling pressure on Bursa Malaysia with a total of 731 stocks falling into the red as the coporate earnings season entered its final week.
At 12.30pm, the benchmark FBM KLCI was down 10.56 points to 1,580.47, weighed down by selling in certain blue chips.
PETRONAS Chemicals slumped 40 sen to RM3.74 following the release of disappointing fourth-quarter results last week.
Malaysian utility and data-centre-related stocks saw strong profit-taking pressure, even as Nvidia is poised to announced its earnings result on Wall Street later tonight.
Tenaga Nasional shed 24 sen to RM13.74, YTL Power dropped eight sen to RM3.14 while Gamuda lost 30 sen to RM4.46.
Amid the selling, domestic bank shares mostly held their ground as they are expected to announce their results later this week.
Meanwhile, leading actives on the market included Harvest Miracle up 0.5 sen to 13.5 sen, MYEG falling three sen to RM1.01 and RGB shedding two sen to 42.5 sen.
Following the end of the early session, 1.66 billion shares were crossed on Bursa Malaysia with a traded value of RM1.14bil.
In key Asian markets, China's composite inedx was down 0.11% to 3,375 while Hong Kong's Hang Seng fell 0.55% to 23,348.
Singapore's Straits Times rose 0.31% to 3,942.
