KUALA LUMPUR (Aug 7): The FBM KLCI pared some of its loss at the midday break, amid trading volume that soared to over 12 billion shares as regional markets fell after the US banned transactions with China’s Tencent and ByteDance.

At 12.30pm, the FBM KLCI was down 4.37 points to 1,584.20. The index had earlier fallen to a low of 1,578.82.

Losers led gainers by 437 to 358, while 649 counters traded unchanged. Trading volume soared to 12.49 billion shares valued at RM4.94 billion from 9.89 billion shares at noon on Thursday.

The top losers included Nestle (M) Bhd, Dutch Lady Milk Industries Bhd, Kossan Rubber Industries Bhd, Vstecs Bhd, Duopharma Biotech Bhd, DKSH Holdings (M) Bhd, Maxis Bhd, Apex Healthcare Bhd, British American Tobacco (M) Bhd and My EG Services Bhd.

The actively traded stocks included Borneo Oil Bhd, Pegasus Heights Bhd, Niche Capital Emas Holdings Bhd, Trive Property Group Bhd, Orion IXL Bhd and XOX Bhd.

The gainers included UPA Corp Bhd, Poh Kong Hong Holdings Bhd, Ho Wah Genting Bhd, Notion VTec Bhd, Niche Capital Emas, Supermax Corp Bhd and Carlsberg Brewery Malaysia Bhd.

Reuters said Asian shares tumbled on Friday after US President Donald Trump ratcheted up already-heightened tensions with Beijing by banning US transactions with China's tech giant Tencent as well as ByteDance, the owner of video-sharing app TikTok.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan lost 1% and Hong Kong's Hang Seng fell 2%. Tencent, Asia's second-biggest company by market capitalisation, dropped 9.0%, it said.

JF Apex Securities Research said US markets advanced overnight with its bullish momentum ahead of a key employment report later today.

It said that earlier, European stocks declined as Bank of England kept interest rates unchanged.

“On the local market, the FBM KLCI surged 20.44 points to 1,588.57 points.

“Following the mixed performances in the US and Europe, the FBM KLCI could remain sideways below the resistance of 1,615 points,” it said.