KUALA LUMPUR: Market sentiment turned cautious on Tuesday as escalating tensions in the Middle East weighed on investor confidence, leading to a broadly weaker performance on Bursa Malaysia.
The FBM KLCI fell 8.35 points, or 0.55%, to 1,511.64, recovering from an intraday low of 1,510.92.
Across the broader market, decliners outnumbered advancers 538 to 353, with 3.03 billion shares worth RM1.93bil transacted.
Among the losers, Nestle tumbled RM1.02 to RM71.70, United Plantations slid 32 sen to RM21.84, Heineken lost 32 sen to RM26.88 and Carlsberg declined 28 sen to RM18.98.
Meanwhile, the top gainer was Westports, which added 27 sen to RM5.30. PETRONAS Dagangan added 16 sen to RM21.20, KESM gained 16 sen to RM2.95 and PETRONAS Gas climbed 14 sen to RM18.10.
Stock market data showed that foreign investors were net sellers of Malaysian equities on Monday, with a total outflow of RM130mil.
Local institutions and retail investors were net buyers, picking up RM85mil and RM45mil worth of equities, respectively.
On the forex market, the ringgit slipped 0.08% against the US dollar to 4.2443.
However, it strengthened against several other major currencies — rising 0.19% against the British pound to 5.7525, gaining 0.11% against the Singapore dollar at 3.3097, and climbing 0.2% against the euro to 4.9032.
On the external front, MSCI’s Asia ex-Japan stock index inched up by 0.02%.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 rose 0.59%, while South Korea’s Kospi edged up 0.12%. In contrast, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index slipped 0.34%.
On the mainland, China’s CSI 300 Index fell 0.09%, and the Shanghai Composite Index eased 0.04%.
