KUALA LUMPUR: Bursa Malaysia plummeted on Friday the 13th, its steepest drop since the subprime mortgage crisis in 2008, amid cautious sentiment among investors.
At closing, the benchmark FBM KLCI was down 74.68 points, or 5.26% to 1,344.75. It hit an intra-day low of 1,320.96 points.
Turnover stood at 5.67 million shares valued at RM4.9bil. Losers thumped gainers by a huge margin, with 986 counters down while 158 finished the day higher.
Stocks fell so fast on Bursa Malaysia at the opening bell this morning. At 10.25 am, the FBM KLCI plunged 91.58 points to 1,327.85. This marks its deepest dive since the height of the subprime mortgage crisis on March 10, 2008, where the index lost 123 points in a single day.
Analysts said the losses came as an oil-price war and the escalating coronavirus outbreak hammered risk assets from all sides. In addition, margin calls are on the rise as share prices plunge.
Analysts reckoned that price weakness has opened up buying opportunities for investors as they believed some stocks may be oversold.
At Bursa Malaysia, the top loser was Nestle that plunged RM4.10 to RM135.10. Carlsberg closed RM1.82 lower at RM22.82, PPB shed RM1.48 to RM16.10 and Heineken fell RM1.34 to RM21.90.
Maybank, which shed 4.83%, or 40 sen to RM7.88, dragged the index down by 8.1287 points. Public Bank fell 90 sen to RM15.30, pushing the index down by 6.316 points and Tenaga declined 60 sen to RM11.82 weighing down the index by 6.168 points.
On the external front, MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was down 0.8%.
China’s benchmark Shanghai Composite Index ended 1.2% lower, while the CSI300 shed 1.4%, after having dropped as much as 4.2% and 4.7%, respectively.
Japan’s Nikkei lost 6.08%, its biggest daily fall since 2013, to 17,431.05, a trough last seen in November 2016.
South Korean shares settled about 3.5% lower on Friday and posted their biggest weekly drop since the 2008 financial crisis
Reuters reported that South Korea's financial regulator will ban short selling in listed shares on the Kospi and Kosdaq starting on March 16 for six months to curb speculative trading.
https://www.thestar.com.my/business/business-news/2020/03/13/worst-day-on-bursa-malaysia-since-2008-financial-crisis
