KUALA LUMPUR: The FBM KLCI remained in negative territory at midday after having pulled back from growing fears over the spread of the Omicron strain of Covid-19.

       At 12.30pm, the benchmark index was down 7.5 points to 1,487.36 as as the UK recorded a jump in the number of Omicron cases, rattling investors who were already anxious over the slow of central bank decision to be announced this week.

       On the blue-chip index, financial stocks were mostly lower.

       Maybank was down seven sen to RM8.11, CIMB fell six sen to RM5.18 and Hong Leong Bank dipped eight sen to RM18.20. Public Bank bucked the trend by rising two sen to RM4.02.

       Other decliners included Press Metal down 10 sen to RM5.37 and Sime Darby Plantation dropping seven sen to RM3.70.

       On the broader market, there a negative market breadth with 497 decliners verus 250.

       Top actives were AT Systemization down 0.5 sen to four sen, Permaju down 0.5 sen to 4.5 sen and MacPie falling 0.5 sen to 3.5 sen.

       Meanwhile, Asian markets fell, tracking US and European markets lower as the UK raised its alert level on the Omicron virus.

       Japan's Nikkei was down 0.9% and South Korea's Kospi dropped 0.7%

       In China, the main index was down 0.3% and Hong Kong's Hang Seng slumped 1.3%.

       Australia's ASX200 rose 0.15%.