The majority were from the technology, and oil and gas (O&G) services sectors, while the rest were from the property, real estate investment trust (REIT), and manufacturing segments.
The suspension will be lifted at 8.30am tomorrow, according to Bursa Malaysia.
IDSS activities are suspended when the last price of securities falls below the daily limit, which is 15% for counters priced above RM1, and 15 sen for stocks below RM1.
The affected stocks from the technology sector included Inari Amertron Bhd, Pentamaster Corp Bhd, ViTrox Corp Bhd, Greatech Technology Bhd, Malaysian Pacific Industries Bhd (MPI), NationGate Holdings Bhd, Genetec Technology Bhd, HeiTech Padu Bhd, and UWC Bhd.
The O&G-related counters were Hibiscus Petroleum Bhd, Dialog Group Bhd, Yinson Holdings Bhd and Dayang Enterprise Holdings Bhd.
The remaining stocks were EcoWorld Development Group Bhd (EcoWorld), Pavilion Real Estate Investment Trust (Pavilion REIT), PMB Technology Bhd, Guan Chong Bhd, and Suria Capital Holdings Bhd.
The biggest losers were the semiconductor-related companies with Pentamaster and Inari dropping 20.8% and 20%, respectively. Greatech and Genetec both slumped 19%, NationGate tumbled more than 18% while MPI fell 16.4%.
The sell-off in the technology counters was spurred by concerns that the semiconductor sector could still be hit by future US trade actions, despite electrical and electronic (E&E) products that are made up of semiconductors being exempted from the latest US tariffs.
The sharp drop since US president Donald Trump’s reciprocal tariffs were unveiled last Wednesday has almost wiped out the technology sector’s 38% gain since the start of the year. The Bursa Malaysia Technology Index tumbled 13.6% to close at 40.34 points today.
With oil prices falling in tandem with global stock markets, it was no surprise to see O&G-related companies among the stocks which had intraday short-selling suspended. Yinson and Dialog both fell 16.7% followed by Hibiscus which dropped 15.3% and Dayang (15%).
Engineering services company Suria Capital and Pavilion REIT fell as much as 17% while property developer EcoWorld dropped 15.8%.
Escalating global trade tensions exacerbated by the unexpectedly high Trump tariffs have triggered a broad-based sell-off in global markets.
The FBM KLCI plunged 80 points or 5.58% to 1,420.22 today, its biggest one-day drop since March 2008, and touched its lowest level since October 2023.
Major Asian indices posted even heavier losses with Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index leading the regional rout with a 13.22% plunge followed by Taiwan’s TAIEX which dropped 9.7%, Japan’s Nikkei 225 (-7.83%) and China’s CSI 300 (-7.05%).