KUALA LUMPUR, March 19 — Malaysia’s Securities Commission and stock exchange said today the exchange would stay open despite a countrywide lockdown, after stockbrokers called on the authorities to shut it down to prevent a coronavirus market collapse.

In a joint statement, the capital market regulators said they will maintain continuous trading and market operations so investors can manage their risks and opportunities.

"Closing the markets would neither mitigate nor address the underlying causes of market volatility. Instead, it will create greater uncertainty and adverse market sentiment by denying investors’ access to their investments,” the statement said.

The regulators would monitor developments to "proactively manage risks in the marketplace, and will introduce additional precautionary measures as appropriate”, they said.

Malaysia on Monday shut its borders to travellers, restricted internal movement, closed schools and universities and ordered most businesses to shut from Wednesday to March 31.

The Association of Stockbroking Companies of Malaysia urged the government to suspend stock trading immediately in line with the movement restriction order.

Chairman Azman Manaf said in a statement that "Bursa Malaysia should be suspended for the time being as a defensive measure to protect the stock market from suffering severe damage that could take almost a decade to heal.”

He noted that the Malaysian stock market had experienced a 23 per cent drop in market capitalisation since the end of 2019, to RM805 billion yesterday.

The stock index fell today to its lowest level since 2009. Malaysia’s 10-year bond yields have risen 61 basis points in the past two weeks at 3.37 per cent.

MIDF Research analyst Adam Mohamed Rahim said the Malaysian stock exchange saw a foreign net outflow of RM1.23 billion from Monday to yesterday, extending a foreign selling streak in the market to the 20th day.

Monday’s foreign net selling of RM520.4 million was the largest in a day since June 2018, he said. Year-to-date, international funds have pulled out RM6.40 billion. — Reuters