KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia’s benchmark stock index stayed slightly in the red at lunch break as investors awaited the tabling of Budget 2024.

The sentiment in global markets had soured overnight following the release of a US consumer prices report, which showed a more rapid increase in costs than expected.

At 12.30pm, the FBM KLCI was down 1.03 points to 1,442.79. There were 416 decliners commpared to 331 gainers. Trading volume was 1.66 billion shares valued at RM88.77mil.

Among the blue chips seeing profit-taking, IHH was down two sen to RM5.94, MISC dropped seven sen to RM7.11 and Public Bank shed three sen to RM4.15.

Meanwhile, investors were seen pickong up some consumer cpounters including British American Tobacco up 15 sen to RM9.55, F&B gaining eight sne to Rm16.16 and Carlsberg rising eight sen to RM20.14.

Top active stocks included UEM Sunrise rising 1.5 sen to 86 sen, Widad adding 0.5 sen to 55 sen and Sapura Energy unchanged at five sen.

In key Asian markets, China’s composite index was down 0.6% to 3,087 while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng plunged 2.1% to 17,852.

Japan’s Nikkei lost 0.4% to 32,354 and South Korea’s Kospi slid 0.9% to 2,457.