KUALA LUMPUR (Oct 27): Steel counters tumbled on Wednesday amid continued corrections in the price of the metal.

Ann Joo Resources Bhd slipped as much as 15 sen or 5.75% to RM2.46. It recovered to RM2.49 as at 3.43pm, still down 12 sen or 4.6% from Tuesday.

Hiap Teck Venture Bhd was down 5.5 sen or 9.23% to 59 sen. It had earlier dropped to an intraday low of 57.5 sen.

Lion Industries Corp Bhd also lost nine sen or 10.11% to reach 80 sen, after falling to an intraday low of 79.5 sen.

Melewar Industrial Group Bhd shed three sen or 6.67% to an intraday low of 42 sen.

Meanwhile, Tong Herr Resources Bhd, Southern Steel Bhd, Leader Steel Holdings Bhd, CSC Steel Holdings Bhd were also on a downward trend.

At 3.53pm, Tong Herr and Southern Steel were down two sen each to RM2.98 and 83.5 sen, respectively.

Leader Steel and CSC Steel slipped one sen each to 67.5 sen and RM1.35 respectively.

"Interest in steel counters may be over as steel price has corrected by quite a lot of late," Rakuten Trade Research head of research Kenny Yee told theedgemarkets.com.

Noting that steel price has been very volatile of late, he said the price may continue to correct as China is seeing slowing growth.

Reuters reported that Chinese steel futures fell on Wednesday as raw material prices plunged amid government intervention to cool commodity prices, while demand for the industrial metal stayed subdued on output controls.

The most-active coking coal and coke futures on the Dalian Commodity Exchange opened down 9% to 2,704 yuan and 3,430 yuan, respectively, hitting their daily trading limits.

Rakuten Trade Sdn Bhd vice president of equity research Thong Pak Leng opined that the fall in steel counters may also be due to overall market weakness.

"The steel counters went up quite a lot recently. It is possible that investors are taking profits," he told theedgemarkets.com.

He added that the selling of property stocks in Hong Kong could have a negative impact on steel counters as they are part of the supply chain in building construction.