KUALA LUMPUR: Bursa Malaysia gave up its recent gains as an AI rout gripped global markets amid fears a Democrat-led US Congress would mean more oversight in the sector.
The local benchmark FBM KLCI - jubilant just a day before as the uncertainty of the US midterm election passed - was down about 1% or 15.91 points to 1,619.95 as at 9.10am.
Wall Street stocks were pounded overnight by intense selling in the technology sector, leading to their worst performance in 18 months.
The Nasdaq shed 5.5% to 1,421.52, wiping out about US$2.5 trillion for a record daily loss in market capitalisation for the index. The S&P500 lost 4.36% to 7,353 while the Dow Jones shed 3.44% to 51,523.
Asian markets are tracking the sell-off, with South Korea's Kospi diving 7.7% to 4,968 and Japan's Nikkei plunging 6.11% to 57,346.
"Technology stands out as the sector most at risk today, with the global AI and chip-stock selloff that sent the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index down over 12% on Thursday threatening further downside for the local sector," said Apex Securities in its market outlook.
Malaysian tech stocks were down 5.78% at the time of writing with big losses in the semiconductor plays. Inari Amertron
lost 19 sen to RM2.09, KESM shed 24 sen to RM4.30 and UWC slid 52 sen to RM6.07.
Pentamaster fell 48 sen to RM4.67 while Vitrox lost 64 sen to RM9.96.
Among the most active stocks, Zetrix AI was up one sen to seven sen, VS Industry shed two sen to 30 sen and Nationgate lost 16 sen to RM1.71.
