KUALA LUMPUR, March 13 — Bursa Malaysia continued its downtrend to open broadly lower on Monday as market participants kept close watch on any potential downside risk to the financial situation following the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB).
At 9.10am, the benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) fell 19.08 points to 1,414.00 from Friday’s close of 1,433.08.
The key index opened 13.66 points lower at 1,419.42.
Market breadth was negative with decliners thumping gainers 487 to 53, while 181 counters were unchanged, 1,514 untraded and 23 others suspended.
Turnover amounted to 537.88 million units worth RM182.50 million.
Bank Muamalat Malaysia Bhd head of economics, market analysis and social finance Mohd Afzanizam Abdul Rashid said the crisis with SVB started when the US-based bank announced its plans to shore up its balance sheet by issuing common stock and preferred shares totalling US$2.25 billion, as well as selling its “available for sale” portfolio amounting to US$21 billion. (US$1=RM4.51)
“This has led to a plunge in their share prices from US$267.83 on March 8 to US$106.04 on March 9. Thus far, the US government has been swift in providing the backstop with US Treasury indicating that it will protect all depositors via the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. In that sense, this may calm the market to some degree.
“However, one could not avoid associating the current problems with the global financial crisis in 2007-2008, when the market liquidity dried up as the financial institutions back then were plagued with bad assets such as low-quality house financing,” he told Bernama.
On the local front, Maybank fell two sen to RM8.38, CIMB eased one sen to RM5.29, Public Bank trimmed three sen to RM3.99 and Hong Leong Bank went down by 20 sen to RM20.20, while CelcomDigi gained three sen to RM4.16.
Among the actives, Hong Seng Consolidated inched down half-a-sen to 14.5 sen, BSL dipped 6.5 sen to seven sen, Iris and Minda Global slipped one sen each to 10.5 sen and 11.5 sen, respectively, and Sapura Energy rose one sen to 5.5 sen.
On the index board, the FBM Emas Index decreased 134.46 points to 10,315.55, the FBM 70 Index fell 138.61 points to 13,154.28, the FBMT 100 Index slid 128.04 points to 10,003.45, the FBM Emas Shariah Index trimmed 79.74 points to 10,593.23, and the FBM ACE Index was 83.43 points lower at 5,244.36.
Sector-wise, the Financial Services Index shed 336.59 points to 15,628.39, the Energy Index reduced 12.57 points to 844.68, the Plantation Index shrank 30.86 points to 6,731.91, and the Industrial Products and Services Index trimmed 1.87 points to 171.06. — Bernama
