KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia's stock index slid into the red going into the lunch break as investors remained by the sidelines in the hope that the US Federal Reserve has done enough to rein in inflation and will put a pause on rate hikes.
At 12.30pm the benchmark FBM KLCI was down 0.88 points to 1,447.27 with two of the country's heavyweight banks leading the decline.
There were 520 declining stocks compared to 284 gaining, with a trading volume of 2.16 billion shares exchanging hands for RM975.18mil.
CIMB shed six sen to RM5.69 pending the release of its corporate earnings later this week while RHB Bank dropped seven sen to RM5.50 on the back of its results announcement yesterday.
Genting, meanwhile, continued its rally as it rose four sen to RM4.64.
PETRONAS Dagangan gained eight sne to RM22.14 and PETRONAS Gas climbed six sne to RM16.86.
Tenaga Nasional was up four sen to RM9.88.
Meanwhile, United Plantation rose 32 sen to RM16.82, Pertama Digital surged 30 sen to RM2.75 and Sptrizer rallied 12 sen to RM1.81.
Top actives included Hong Seng flat at 2.5 sen, Leform up one sen to 31 sen an CSH unchanged at 5.5 sen.
Top Glove was also actively traded, rising 2.5 sen to 90.5 sen.
Ahead of the US inflation report and comments by Fed chair Jerome Powell later this week, Asian markets were trading mixed amid the heightened caution.
China's composite index gained 0.1% to 3,034 while Hong Kong's Hang Seng dropped 0.6% to 17,419.
Japan's Nikkei fell 0.4% to 33,323 and South Korea's Kospi gained 0.6% to 2,511.
