KUALA LUMPUR: The FBM KLCI was slightly under at midday, in line with a broader regional pullback as crude prices tumbled and the US and Japan announced a joint intervention to halt the yen's decline.
At midday, the benchmark index was down 2.08 points to 1,722.83, pulled mostly lower by declining oil- and commodity-related stocks.
PETRONAS Chemicals dropped 15 sen to RM4.63 as Brent crude futures prices tumbled 7.5% to US$83.39 a barrel following US President Donald Trump's decision to call of an attack on Iran.
PETRONAS Gas shed eight sen to RM17.46 while Press Metal
slid eight sen to RM7.88.
Nestle, however, jumped RM1.80 to RM102.90, extending the optimism following the announcement of its quarterly earnings last week.
The broader market sentiment on Bursa Malaysia was also negative, with 524 declining issues compared to 413 gainers. Trading volume was 1.56 billion shares changing hands at RM1.1bil.
The technology sector was 0.54%, gaining on the coattails of Wall Street's tech rally last Friday, on the back of robust earnings in Microsoft and Amazon.
Financial services was 0.23% higher, as well as consumer services, gaining 0.17%.
Healthcare stocks, however, were down 0.37%, while construction shed 0.24% and energy fell 0.1%.
Of the day's leading actives, Hubline dropped 0.5 sne to three sen, Tanco rose one sen to 27 sen and Zetrix AI shed 1.5 sen to 73 sen.
Regional markets were negative, with South Korea's stock exchange continuing to display extreme volatility. At the time of writing the Kospi composite index was down 4.6% to 6,291.
Japan's Nikkei was down 0.88% to 63,798. China's Shanghai Composite index fell 0.59% to 3,809 and Hong Kong's Hang Seng was little changed at 25,895.
