KUALA LUMPUR: Early gains in Malaysia's blue chips were erased by midday as trader opted for a cautious approach ahead of the US Federal Reserve's interest rate decision.
Regional equities have been spurred on by optimism over AI-related earnings, propelled by SK Hynix's forecast-beating result overnight.
Investors on Bursa Malaysia, however, remained defensive, with the benchmark index ending 1.44 points lower at 1,610.41 at the lunch break after spending much of the early session in positive territory.
Despite the profit-taking in market heavyweights, the trading breadth was positive with 575 advancing issues compared to 356 declining. Trading volume was 1.96 billion shares valued at RM1.09bil.
Technology shares were the biggest gainer, rising 2.23%, even as financial services sank 0.19%, plantations dropped 0.21% and property fell 0.33%
Construction shares gained 0.43% and consumer service rose 0.26%.
Among blue chips, Nestle was the most improved, surging RM2.76 to RM97.04 following the release of its latest quarterly result yesterday.
YTL Power bounced 19 sen higher after the previous day's decline while YTL Corp added nine sen to RM2.14.
Most traded shares included Zetrix AI, rising 0.5 sen to nine sen, Top Glove adding 0.5 sen to 97 sen and GIIB shedding 2.5 sen to 71 sen.
Meanwhile, tech shares were on a searing hot rally in Asia as SK Hynix revived optimism over AI demand. South Korea's Kospi shot up 6.42% to the 6,000-point level, its highest in two weeks.
Japan's Nikkei rose 1.05% to 63,936.
In China, the Shanghai Composite index gained 0.72% to 3,674 while the blue-chip CSI300 added 0.68% to 4,077. Hong Kong's Hang Seng rose 0.43% to 23,140.
