KUALA LUMPUR: The FBM KLCI slumped in morning trade as investors took to the sidelines ahead of the Jackson Hole meet where US Fed chair Jerome Powell is expected to signal a hawkish stance on interest rates.
At 12.30pm, the key index was down 11.01 points to 1,471.56. The market breadth was negative with 479 decliners compared with 274 gainers.
Trading volume was 1.76 billion shares valued at RM827.94mil.
Sime Darby Plantation
fell 19 sen to RM4.21 following yesterday’s earnings announcement as the group expects headwinds in the form of the labour shortage.
Sector peer IOI also dropped 13 sen to RM4.06.
PETRONAS Chemicals slid 10 sen to RM8.46 on the back of its own earnings result while IHH Healthcare lost 14 sen to RM6.20.
Among banks, Maybank was down one sen to RM8.82, Public Bank fell one sen to RM4.59, Hong Leong Bank shed six sen to RM20.46 and RHB slipped two sen to RM5.73. CIMB climbed 10 sen to RM5.38.
On the actives list, Euro fell 0.5 sen to 12.5 sen, Serba Dinamik dropped three sen to five sen and Technax was unchanged at 3.5 sen.
In Asia, markets tracked Wall Street lower on anxieties over US interest rate hikes.
Japan’s Nikkei fell 0.5% to 28,312, South Korea’s Kospi rose 0.1% to 2,437 and China’s composite index dropped 1.4% to 3,231.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng declined 1.3% to 19,243 while Australia’s ASX200 rose 0.4% to 6,992.