KUALA LUMPUR: As confidence the US central bank had ended its rate hikes faded, Asian markets eased away from recent highs to brace for what cold be further monetary tightening.
At midday, Malaysia's benchmark FBM KLCI more than erased the gains in made in the previous session, slumping 8.44 points to 1,454.96.
The broader market retreated with 476 decliners compared to 287 gainers. Trading volume was 1.73 billion shares valued at RM1.01bil.
Most counters on the 30-stock blue-chip index were seen falling including PETRONAS Chemicals down 14 sen to RM7.24 and Press Metal
sliding eight sne to RM4.86.
Genting dropped five sen to RM4.38 and Axiata slid five sen to RM2.40.
Leading decliners on the broader market included Pertama Digital diving 78 sen to RM2.73 and Hap Seng shedding 30 sen to RM4.70 after a dismal earnings report yesterday.
Top actives were Widad up 0.5 sen to 46.5 sen, Top Glove rising two sen to 83 sne and Capital A gaining three sen to 86.5 sen.
On the heels of Wall Street's overnight decline, Asian markets lost some of the optimism seen previously that US tightening measure had reached its end.
In China, the composite index fell 0.3% to 3,059 and Hong Kong's Hang Seng slid 0.1% to 17,720.
Japan's NIkkei rose 0.3% to 33,454 as it rebounded from earlier selling and South Korea's Kospi pared earlier losses to 0.2% lower at 2,505.
