KUALA LUMPUR: Over 1,200 tickers on the Bursa Malaysia scoreboard flashed crimson as investors fled equities amid the rising threat of global tariffs.
As the early session ended for the lunch break, the FBM KLCI had plunged over 4.3% or 65 points to 1,439.07, en route to its worst one-day drop since the unwinding of the yen carry-trade in August 2024, and before that, the start of the Covid crisis in March 2020.
The frenetic selling activity brought up market volume to 3.15 billion shares, transacted for a total value of RM2.54bil. The number of declining market issuers to advancers was 1,274 to 88, for a lopsided ratio of 14.5-to-1.
While sectors across the market were hammered, leading laggards included financial services, plantations and utilities.
As at the lunch break, Bursa Malaysia has announced the intra-day short-selling of 13 stocks has been suspended for the remainder of the day following the decline of their respective share prices below price limits.
These stocks are Pavilion REIT
, Pentamaster, Guan Chong, Inari Amertron, UWC, Greatec, Vitrox, EcoWorld, Genetec Technology, Malaysian Pacific Industries, PMB Technology, Nationgate and Suria Capital.
Notwithstanding the dismal performance of Malaysia's benchmark index - which has crashed below several critical support levels - AmBank Research noted that the FBM KLCI is an outperformer in the region post-tariff announcement, with a lower percentage of decline compared to other markets.
In its strategy report, the research firm also offered some hope to domestic investors looking for a light at the end of the tunnel.
"With relatively high cash levels, tightened margin financing criteria and the assumption of no large-scale redemptions, we believe selling pressure will dissipate," it said.
Of stocks under its coverage, it said affected sectors were mainly exporters to the US such as technology and rubber gloves, as well as commodities such as oil and gas and plantations.
"While we perceive the direct impact to be contained (due to exemption of semiconductors and crude oil from reciprocal tariffs and limited exposure to US for plantations and ports), the bigger threat is to end demand, as tariffs push up the price of end products," it said.
For investors seeking a place to hide, AmBank recommends telcos (due to stabilisation of service revenues and merger opportunities), plantations (expectation of strong 2025F CPO prices) and hospitals (inelastic demand and multiple rerating).
At the time of writing, global markets were a sea of red, led by a 10.7% dive in Hong Kong's Hang Seng to 20,404.
Singapore's Straits Times index dropped 8.12% to 3,515 while Japan's Nikkei 225 slid 7.13% to 31,370.
Shanghai's composite index dropped 6.34% to 3,130 while the blue-chip CSI300 lost 6.31% to 3,517.
There is not expected to be any relief in the offing as US futures are pointing towards yet another bloody sell-off on Wall Street tonight.
The S&P 500 mini is down 3.9% while the Nasdaq mini has slid 4.5%. The Dow mini is down 3.1%.
