KUALA LUMPUR: Investors cashed out on gains made earlier in the week to take Malaysia's benchmark index back to last Friday's closing level.
At 12.30pm, the FBM KLCI was down 14.86 points to 1,539.7, erasing the advance made over the last two trading sessions, while lower liners on the market were mostly negative with 476 decliners compared to 409 gainers.
The trading volume was 2.37 billion shares valued at RM1.19bil.
Analysts had expected the FBM KLCI to remain on an upward trend after registering four straight days of gains.
The positive reaction of Wall Street traders to recent US inflation figures also boosted optimism that the bullish sentiment would spill over to the Malaysian market.
However, there was a broad-based retreat in the blue-chips with 21 out of 30 counters falling into the red.
Among the worst-hit, PETRONAS Dagangan dropped 38 sen to RM21.34 and PPB shed 36 sen to RM15.14.
The bank sector had a mixed of winners and losers but Hong Leong Bank led laggards after dropping 20 sen to RM19.38.
PETRONAS Chemicals, meanwhile, slid seven sen to RM6.85, while Telekom Malaysia lost five sen to RM5.95.
In telcos, CelcomDigi dropped six sen to RM4.32, Maxis gave up five sen 6to RM3.58 and Axiata fell three sen to RM2.82.
Of actives on Bursa Malaysia, Hong Seng rose 0.5 sen to two sen, Pan Malaysia dropped 1.5 sen to 21 sen and Malayan United Industries gained 0.5 sen to 6.5 sen.
Meanwhile, China's markets were also in the red as Country Garden missed a coupon payment, dragging on the country's property sector.
The Shanghai Composite Index lost 0.3% to 3,047 while the blue-chip CSI300 slid 0.5% to 3,579.
Hong Kong's Hang Seng, however, rose 0.3% to 17,142.
Japan's Nikkei lost its early lead to slide 0.2% to 38,727 and South Korea's Kospi rose 0.2% to 2,686.
