KUALA LUMPUR: Bursa Malaysia shed some of the recent gains in early Wednesday trade as the nation awaited news about the successor for the prime minister’s post.

       As sentiment was also weighed down by the overnight decline on Wall Street and cautious key Asian markets, retail investors were seen locking gains in semicon and chip stocks.

       At 9.10am, the FBM KLCI fell 2.46 points or 0.16% to 1,521.13. Turnover was 413.69 million shares valued at RM130.71mil. There were 130 gainers, 198 losers and 288 counters unchanged.

       Asian stocks wavered early Wednesday, U.S. futures slipped and the dollar held a rally on concern that a resurgent coronavirus will hurt the economic recovery, according to Bloomberg.

       Shares edged lower in Japan and South Korea, while Australia’s market was hampered by a slide in BHP Group. The S&P 500 snapped a five-day rally overnight and the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 retreated.

       At Bursa on Tuesday, hopes for a quick successor gave the stock market a boost.

       For the second day, foreign funds were net buyers at RM96.6mil and local institutions also net buyers at RM22.1mil while local retailers turned took profit and were net sellers at RM118.7mil.

       Rakuten Trade said with nominations for a new PM gathering pace, “we expect the index to consolidate a bit today”.

       It anticipates the index to possibly hover around the 1,520-1,530 range today.

       The Star reports that a special meeting of the Malay Rulers will be held this Friday at Istana Negara where the King is most likely to share the decision of the 220 Members of Parliament in choosing the prime minister.

       The lawmakers have been told to submit their statutory declaration directly to Yang di-Pertuan Agong Al-Sultan Abdullah Ri’ayatuddin Al-Mustafa Billah Shah by today.

       At Bursa, SAM Engineering fell 44 sen to RM12.30, Genetec 42 sen to RM26, Vitrox 30 sen to RM19,60, KESM 22 sen to RM12, MPI 18 sen to RM43.50 and Pentamaster 10 sen to RM5.40.

       PPB Group fell 10 sen to RM18.10 and MISC seven sen to RM6.77 and dragging the KLCI into the red.

       See Hup lost nine sen to RM1.10 and Duopharma five sen to RM2.44.

       Dataprep rose 18 sen to RM1.27, KL Kepong eight sen to RM19.58, KUB seven sen to 67.5 sen, Lagenda six sen to RM1.32, Gas Malaysia five sen to RM2.69.