KUALA LUMPUR, July 16 — Selling pressure across Bursa Malaysia continues with the barometer index settling 12.08 points or 0.76 per cent weaker at 1,573.48, mainly due to Top Glove as the world’s largest glove manufacturer is facing US detention order on disposable gloves manufactured by its subsidiaries.

Trading on Bursa Malaysia Securities was halted at 3.30pm today and the matter is currently being investigated, Bursa Malaysia Securities said earlier.

Bursa Malaysia in a statement said trading will resume tomorrow as normal with the last traded price will be used as the reference price.

The FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) had opened 2.24 points lower at 1,583.32 compared with yesterday’s  close of 1,585.56.

It moved between 1,572.11 and 1,599.53 throughout today’s session.

Market breadth was negative with losers surpassing gainers 782 to 249, while 379 counters were unchanged, 555 untraded and 28 others suspended.

Total volume was higher at 9.28 billion units worth RM4.14 billion compared to 8.24 billion shares worth RM5.01 billion yesterday.

MIDF Research senior analyst Imran Yassin Md Yusof said the market saw some profit-taking activities earlier given the sharp rebound posted in the past couple of month.

"It might be too early to say that it is in consolidating mode since we have yet to see persistent selling in the market.

"As for today, the pullback could be due to the latest development surrounding Top Glove,” he told Bernama.

The glove maker’s shares dipped about 10 per cent to below RM20, wiping out RM3.2 billion of its market value.

It confirmed that the US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has placed a detention order effective yesterday on disposable gloves manufactured by two of its subsidiaries, Top Glove Sdn Bhd and TG Medical Sdn Bhd.

AxiCorp chief global market strategist Stephen Innes told Bernama regional stock markets hit a bit of a roadblock despite positive sentiment overnight and a better-than-expected China’s second-quarter 2020 gross domestic product data.

"I think this is directly attributable to the worse than expected retail sales number in China this morning.

"The negative reading suggests that consumers are not spending and this reflects poorly for what is expected to be a consumer-driven economic recovery and hurts regional economies like Malaysia that has strong export ties with China,” he said.  

China’s economy grew 3.2 per cent in the second quarter of 2020, the first major economy to show recovery from the damage caused by the Covid-19.

In the first of quarter 2020, its economy contracted by 6.8 per cent.

Meanwhile, China’s industrial production, a gauge of manufacturing, mining and utilities, increased by 4.8 per cent in June from a 4.4 per cent rise in May and retail sales dropped by 1.8 per cent, better than the 2.8 per cent decline in May.

Heavyweights Top Glove dropped 56 sen to RM21.24 and Hartalega declined 44 sen to RM15.16.

Other glove makers, Kossan was 44 sen lower at RM15.16 and Supermax lost 16 sen to RM14.90, with the four big glove companies wiping out a total RM10.6 billion in a single day.

Maybank and IHH went down nine sen each to RM7.82 and RM5.34 respectively, while Public Bank decreased 18 sen to RM18.42.

Of the most active, Pegasus and XOX rose half-a-sen each to 2.5 sen and 10.5 sen respectively, while Netx was flat at one-sen. 

On the index board, the FBM Emas Index inched down 97.46 points to 11,087.19, the FBMT 100 Index depreciated 96.10 points to 10,940.85 and the FBM Emas Shariah Index was 122.26 points lower at 12,685.16.

The FBM 70 went down 168.32 points to 13,694.63 and the FBM ACE eased 66.28 points to 7,169.98.

Sector-wise, the Financial Services Index slipped 97.11 points to 13,437.10, the Plantation Index inched down 6.99 points to 6,955.36 and the Industrial Products and Services Index lost 0.37 point to 137.40.

Main Market volume expanded to 4.76 billion units worth RM3.34 billion from 4.53 billion units worth RM4.08 billion yesterday.

Warrants turnover dropped to 564.59 million shares valued at RM252.85 million from 627.27 million shares valued at RM236.57 million previously.

Volume on the ACE Market was higher at 3.96 billion units worth RM551.50 million from 3.08 billion units worth RM696.91 million yesterday.

Consumer products and services accounted for 477 million shares traded on the Main Market, industrial products and services (682.44 million), construction (186.44 million), technology (453.13 million), SPAC (nil), financial services (33.90 million), property (1.79 billion), plantations (110.16 million), REITs (5.93 million), closed/fund (348,500), energy (379.39 million), healthcare (131.89 million), telecommunications and media (88.19 million), transportation and logistics (398.21 million) and utilities (20.34 million). — Bernama