KUALA LUMPUR: Stocks on Bursa Malaysia were beaten down on Monday on speculation over the political developments in the country.

       There was a broad-based pullback in equities with 766 decliners compared to 188 gainers at midday. At 12.30pm, the FBM KLCI was down 8.45 points to 1,496.66, having slipped once more below the 1,500 level.

       A news portal yesterday had cited confirmation from the Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Datuk Seri Mohd Redzuan Yusof that Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin will hand in his resignation today to the King.

       This came following the premier's unsuccessful bid to muster support following Umno's withdrawal of its support from the ruling coalition.

       Kenanga Research affirmed a negative outlook in its weekly technical note given the negative momentum.

       "Consequently, the FBMKLCI could back off from our first resistance hurdle of 1,510 (R1) to drift towards our immediate support threshold of 1,475 (S1).

       "Should S1 give way, the FBMKLCI may find its next support level at 1,440 (S2, which is where it was back in May last year)," it said.

       On the blue-chip FBM KLCI, twenty-four out of 30 stocks were in the red. Among leading laggards, Petronas Chemicals fells six sen to RM7.90, Press Metal dropped six sen to RM4.94 and Top Glove slid six sen to RM3.69.

       On the broader market, top decliners included Genetech down 84 sen to RM26.42, Sam Engineeting alling 62 sen to RM13.68 and Vitrox sliding 16 sen to RM18.94.

       Most active stocks were Avillion up 1.5 sen to 20.5 sen, DNeX sliding 3.5 sen to 75 sne and KNM up 0.5 sne to 21.5 sen.

       Meanwhile, Asian markets pulled back after Chinese data showed a sharp slowdown in growth.

       Japan's Nikkei fell 1.7% and South Korea's Kospi dropped 1.2%.

       China's main index was up 0.4% while Hong Kong's Hang Seng slipped 0.7%. Australia's ASX200 dropped 0.3%.