Markets in Asia were mixed in the first half of the day after the White House failed to make headway with Democrats over a stimulus deal.
Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump's attack on Chinese-owned apps worsened geopolitical tensions, leading to talk of a cold war with China.
At 12.30pm, the FBM KLCI was down 9.01 points to 1,569.13. Over the broader markets, turnover in small caps remained at a high as trading volume soared to an impressive 11.83 billion shares valued at RM4.7bil.
Pulling the main index lower was Top Glove shedding 74 sen to RM27.40 and Hartalega
dropping 54 sen to RM18.60.The financial counters were mostly flat although Public Bank lost eight sen to RM16.68 and Maybank gained one sen to RM7.51. CIMB and Hong Leong Bank were unchanged at RM3.44 and RM14.70 respectively.
Among the top decliners by percentage value was Poh Kong, which slipped 16 sen to RM1.39 after previously soaring on record gold prices. Malayan Flour Mills dropped 10.5 sen while Jerasia slid 11.5 sne to 63 sen.
Gainers meanwhile were led by SMTrack surging 22.5 sen to 50.5 sen. Johan jumped 9.5 sen to 22.5 sen and Inix leapt 30 sen to the upper daily limit at 79 sen.
Texchem meanwhile similarly hit limit up after gaining 29.5 sen to RM1.
Of actives, Borneo Oil
rose two sen to 9.5 sen, PHB gained 0.5 sen to 4.5 sen and XOX climbed two sen to 31 sen.On the commodities market, comments by Saudi Aramco over the weekend that it sees oil demand rebounding in Asia helped to buoy the outlook even as Iraq pledged to further cut back on supply.
US crude rose 50 cents to US$41.72 a barrel while Brent crude gained 40 cents to US$44.80 a barrel.