Malaysia's key share index surrendered early gains to close lower on Tuesday, dampened by the US dollar's persistent weakness.
The benchmark Kuala Lumpur Composite Index ended down 0.68 percent at 787.29, the day's low. It had touched an early high of 794.79.
Overall volume totalled 558 million shares, with gainers and losers evenly matched.
Analysts blamed the dollar's slide for the market's fall, which bucked the rise in most regional bourses including Japan, Singapore and Korea.
"The under-performance versus regional markets is partly because foreign funds are not coming in and this is due to the weakening US dollar that will bring down the ringgit in tandem," said Ngu Chie Kieng, research head at local brokerage TA Securities.
Malaysia's ringgit currency is pegged at 3.80 to a dollar and the dollar's fall could discourage foreign investment as exchange rate losses erode capital gains.
Losses in blue chips such as Maybank, Tenaga Nasional, Sime Darby, British American Tobacco and Genting hurt the index but penny stocks commanded investors' attention.
FACB Resorts topped the list of active counters, shedding 8.3 percent to 16.5 cents on volume of 31 million shares.
Shipping firm Malaysian Bulk Carriers gained as much as four percent as investors bet that better freight rates would boost the company's earnings.
But the stock gave back its gains, finishing unchanged at 1.97 ringgit. It rose 6.5 percent on Monday.
Harbour-Link Group, which assumed Tongkah Holdings' listing status, closed at 2.15 ringgit, a 105 percent jump over its reference price. The stock hit an intraday high of 2.83 ringgit.
Comments
Comments are closed.