Bursa Malaysia opened lower today, in line with Wall Street's weak performance overnight following tensions between US President Donald Trump and Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell over the direction of interest rates.
The dispute between the two leaders has raised concerns among investors amid the escalating tariff war.
At 3.30pm, the benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) fell 14.19 points (0.94%) to 1,485.80 from 1,499.47.
The benchmark index opened down 7.03 points to 1,492.44.
Market sentiment was negative with losers outnumbering gainers by 351 to 86 while 283 other counters were unchanged, 1,705 were untraded and 30 others were suspended.
Total trading volume was 536.74 million shares worth RM190.98 million.
Rakuten Trade Sdn Bhd Vice President of Equity Research Thong Pak Leng said Trump is trying to remove Powell and this is changing the perception of the Fed as an independent entity.
Tensions between Trump and Powell are heating up with the US leader keen to remove Powell, although it will be difficult for him to do so.
Locally, he expected foreign selling activity to have impacted the FBM KLCI's closing trades, based on daily trading volume falling to 1.53 billion shares, the lowest level to date.
Heavyweights saw Maybank and Public Bank fall 5.0 sen to RM9.93 and RM4.35 respectively, Tenaga Nasional down 10 sen to RM13.38, CIMB down 13 sen to RM6.73 and IHH Healthcare down 3.0 sen to RM6.86
