KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia's benchmark stock index continued its slump in morning trade as a change in investor appetite for equities triggered sharp selling in over 900 counters on the domestic market.
As the market entered the lunch break, the FBM KLCI was down 11.16 points to 1,480.05.
A total of 906 counters were seen falling into negative territory as compared to just 157 counters gaining and 316 unchanged.
The morning session's trading remained active with 3.74 billion shares crossing for a market value of RM1.75bil.
Leading the day's trading activity with 257.82 million shares crossed was Artroniq, which ended the morning 27 sen or 57.55% lower at 22.5 sen, after having hit limit down at 19.5 sen at the open.
Investors have been furiously selling down the stock for a third straight day, erasing 64 sen a share or about RM261mil of its market capitalisation.
The second most-traded stock of the morning, Widad, also saw its share price plummet as investors withdrew 25.5 sen or 52% of its value to 23.5 sen.
The company received an unusual market activity query from Bursa Securities following the sharp change in share price.
Meanwhile, Bursa Securities suspended the short-selling of Jentayu Sustainables and Tanco for the remainder of the day after their respective share prices dropped below 15%/15 sen from their reference price.
Jentayu closed the early session 34 sen or 29.82% lower at its limit down price of 80 sen, while Tanco shed 19.5 sen or 29.77% to 46 sen.
Among the blue chips, notable laggards Public Bank falling five sen to RM4.30 and Tenaga Nasional sliding 12 sen to RM10.32.
YTL Power, which had been on a hot streak since the start of the year, lost 20 sen or 5.3% to RM3.58 while YTL Corp dropped 15 sen or 6.5% to RM2.17.
The weakness in equities was seen across regional markets on Thursday, as recent economic data motivated investors to pull back from heavy bets that the US Federal Reserve would begin slashing interest rates from as soon as March this year.
In China, a shaky economic economic recovery made investors jittery, sparking a further selldown of shares.
The Shanghai Composite index was down 1.6% to 2,788 while Hong Kong's Hang Seng bounced back 0.6% to 16,366 after a sharp dive to a November 2022 low in the previous session.
Japan's Nikkei was flat at 35,501, as was South Korea's Kospi at 2,437.
