KUALA LUMPUR: It was a sea of red on the local bourse, with over 1,000 counters in the red, reflecting the current weak sentiment in the market.
Adding to the negative sentiment, U.S. President Joe Biden's withdrawal from the 2024 presidential race has sparked market uncertainty.
At the close, the benchmark FBM KLCI dropped 14.48 points, or 0.88%, to 1,622.07, rebounding from an intraday low of 1,616.74. All sectoral indices closed negative.
In the broader market, losers outnumbered gainers with 1,044 stocks ending lower and 285 stocks finishing higher. That gave a market breadth of 0.27 indicating the bears were in better control.
The KLCI-component stocks were overwhelmingly negative, with 26 losers and two gainers.
Among the losers on Bursa Malaysia, Nestle tumbled 80 sen to RM121.70, Dutch Lady
fell 44 sen to RM33.06, Malaysian Pacific Industries lost 44 sen to RM38.12 and Carlsberg slid 26 sen to RM18.68.
Theta Edge gained 26 sen to RM3.06, HeiTech Padu added 19 sen to RM2.44, Heineken rose 16 sen to RM23.30 and Concrete Engineering Products climbed 16 sen to RM1.22.
ACE Market debutant, BWYS Group jumped 59.09%, or 13 sen to 35 sen. The sheet metal product manufacturer and scaffolding supplier is the most actively traded counter on Bursa Malaysia with 347.56 million shares done.
On the forex market, the ringgit was up 0.11% against the greenback to 4.6807 and up 0.11% against the Singapore dollar at 3.4810.
Around the region, MSCI's Asia ex-Japan stock index was lower by 0.6%.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 closed 1.16% lower at 39,599.00 while South Korea’s Kospi closed down 1.14% at 2,763.51.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index was up 1.25% at 17,635.88, China’s CSI 300 index edged down 0.68% to 3,514.92 and Shanghai Composite Index fell 0.61% to 2,964.22.
