KUALA LUMPUR: After a sharp downturn in investor sentiment, the market will be turning to Malaysia's economic report due out at noon with hopes pinned on a better-than-expected result.
Following the previous session's sharp profit-taking, the benchmark FBM KLCI returned to its lowest in two weeks and could be faced with further downside pressure as Wall Street suffered yet another bout of strong selling.
"Wall Street remained downbeat as the Dow (-0.8%) slipped on the back of weaker performances in technology giants as the global bond markets selloff intensified.
"The European stockmarkets also turned weaker, while Asia stockmarkets ended mixed," said Malacca Securities Research in its market review.
At 9am, Malaysia's benchmark FBM KLCI was up 1.25 points to 1,449.23 as investors hopes to catch a bounce on the market.
However, the momentum failed to gain steam with the key index returning to the red soon after.
Some heavyweight bank counters led the decline including CIMB down seven sen to RM5.57 and Public Bank falling two sen to RM4.14.
Tenaga Nasional dropped six sen to RM9.89 and CelcomDigi shed three sen to RM4.39.
On the broader markets, Heineken retreated after an earnings-inspired two-day rally, dropping 50 sen to RM26.08, while Carlsberg shed four sen to RM20.42.
Other counters falling back included Inari Amertron
down six sen to RM2.94, Gamuda slipping five sen to RM4.45 and Sunway down five sen to RM1.87.
Awanbiru Technologies, which has the subject of heavy trading,, remained in the spotlight as it attempted to prevent a delisting from Bursa Malaysia following the termination of its Microsoft contract. The share bounced 0.5 sen higher to 18 sen after a rout in the previous session.
Hong Seng was the most actively traded, unchanged at 6.5 sen on 52.13 million shares done. Tanco rose 0.5 sen ot 55.5 sen on 14.11 million shares crossed and Parkson was up two sen to 24 sen to on 9.21 million shares exchanging hands.
