Losing Streak May Continue For Malaysia Stock Market

(RTTNews) - The Malaysia stock market has finished lower in four straight sessions, slipping more than 50 points or 3.1 percent in that span. The Kuala Lumpur Composite Index now sits just above the 1,585-point plateau and it's likely to open under water again on Friday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets is mixed to lower on rising oil prices and anticipated weakness among the technology stocks. The European markets were up and the U.S. bourses were down and the Asian markets figure to follow the latter lead.

The KLCI finished modestly lower again on Thursday following losses among the finance, plantation and energy sectors, while the technology stocks were mixed.

For the day, the index slipped 9.23 points or 0.58 percent to finish at 1,585.96 after trading between 1,583.66 and 1,592.89.

The lead from Wall Street is weak as the major averages opened mixed on Thursday, bounced higher midday but faded in the afternoon to finish with modest losses.

The Dow slumped 189.40 points or 0.36 percent to finish at 52,297.09, while the NASDAQ sank 100.10 points or 0.39 percent to end at 25,366.09 and the S&P 500 fell 26.98 points or 0.35 percent to close at 7,592.40.

A steep drop by shares of Nvidia (NVDA) initially weighed on Wall Street, with the AI leader plummeted after the company's Board of Directors announced the resignation of embattled CEO Jensen Huang.

Buying interest remained subdued amid a sharp increase by the price of crude oil, which spiked on Thursday as supply disruptions concerns resurfaced after U.S. President Donald Trump said the U.S. is no longer interested in any deal with Iran. West Texas Intermediate crude for December delivery rose $1.96 or 2.27 percent at $88.49 per barrel.

Airline stocks moved sharply lower amid the surge in crude oil prices, while gold, telecom, brokerage, computer hardware and biotech stocks also saw notable weakness.