KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia's benchmark stock index extended its decline from earlier in the day as the rout on Wall Street overnight spilled over onto Asian markets.
At 12.30pm, the FBM KLCI was down 12.14 points to 1,437,39, which represents a fresh November 2022 low.
The broader market was mostly negative with 652 decliners compared with 168 gainers.
Trading volume was 1.69 billion shares valued at RM1.14bil.
The blue-chip index was awash in red with 23 of the 30 stocks coming under selling pressure.
Domestic banks took the lead of their global counterparts and fell in line with fears over the economy.
Public Bank dropped four sen to RM4.09, CIMB slid si sen to RM5.44, Hong Leong Bank lost 16 sen to RM20.36 and RHB was down five sen to RM5.67. Maybank bucked the trend with a two sen increase to RM8.73.
Telcos were also hard hit as CelcomDigi fell nine sen to RM4.14, Maxis shed five sne to RM3.97 and Axiata slipped five sen to RM3.09.
Among the most actively traded stocks, market debutant Cape EMS rose 52 sen to RM1.42, Hong Seng gained 0.5 sen to 15 sen and Vinvest was flat at 22.5 sen.
Meanwhile, regional markets were similarly pummeled as investors worried over the health of the global economy.
Japan's Nikkei dropped 1.6% to 28,168, South Korea's Kospi dropped 1.1% to 2,393 and China's composite index slid 1.15% to 3,238.
Hong Kong's Hang Seng dove 2.5% to 19,434 and Australia's ASX200 shed 2.3% to 7,141.
