BURSA MALAYSIA SLIPS FURTHER AT MIDDAY

KUALA LUMPUR, April 9 (Bernama) -- Bursa Malaysia continued to trend lower to end the morning session in negative territory as sentiment remained subdued amid renewed fears of aggressive tariff measures.

At 12.30 pm, the FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) fell 39.09 points, or 2.71 per cent to 1,404.47 from Tuesday’s close of 1,443.56.

The benchmark index opened 6.55 points lower at 1,437.01 and moved between 1,403.2 and 1,438.99 during the morning trading session.

Market breadth was also negative with decliners thumping gainers 862 to 185, while 273 counters were unchanged, 1,030 untraded and 10 suspended.

Turnover stood at 2.01 billion shares worth RM1.55 billion.

ActivTrades trader Anderson Alves noted that Asian equities could trade with heightened volatility and a negative bias today as participants await potential tariff response from China.

"The skew is negative, following a sharp sell-off in global risk assets (as the US ended yesterday’s trading). Investors braced for the implementation of sweeping new tariffs.

"The White House press secretary confirmed that the 104 per cent tariff on China will take effect today, citing China’s failure to remove its retaliatory 34 per cent tariff. Reciprocal tariffs on other trading partners also proceeded as scheduled," he told Bernama.

Among the heavyweights, Maybank fell 33 sen to RM9.55, Public Bank lost nine sen to RM4.13, TNB dropped 40 sen to RM12.82, CIMB shed 35 sen to RM6.33 and IHH Healthcare rose two sen to RM6.75.

Among the actives, SumiSaujana lost 6.5 sen to 17.5 sen, Supermax added seven sen to 84.5 sen, MYEG fell three sen to 74 sen, NEXG eased half-a-sen to 21.5 sen and Top Glove picked up four sen to 86 sen.

On the index board, the FBM Emas Index declined 285.59 points to 10,365.16, the FBMT 100 Index depreciated 280.37 points to 10,172.64, and the FBM Emas Shariah Index decreased 237.32 points to 10,116.59.

The FBM 70 Index weakened by 386.02 points to 14,398.54, and the FBM ACE Index lost 181.09 points to 4,132.81.

Sector-wise, the Financial Services Index shaved 614.09 points to 16,981.33, the Industrial Products and Services Index slipped 4.43 points to 132.62, the Energy Index declined 27.52 points to 616.92, and the Plantation Index dropped 126.05 points to 6,847.71.

-- BERNAMA