KUALA LUMPUR: Blue chips fell in early Monday trade, tracking the worried key Asian markets after US President Donald Trump’s threat to hike US tariffs on US$200bil worth of Chinese goods this week and targeted hundreds of billions more.

At 9.13am, the FBM KLCI was down 5.08 points or 0.31% to 1,632.22. Turnover was 139.21 million shares valued at RM139.22mil. There were 89 gainers, 346 losers and 159 counters unchanged.

US stock index futures fell further and the S&P futures were last down 2.1%, according to Reuters. Meanwhile, US crude oil futures fell by 3% to US$60.07 per barrel.

Trump’s threat to hike US tariffs on US$200bil worth of Chinese goods this week and target hundreds of billions more soon is “political posturing”, says SPI Asset Management managing partner Stephen Innes.

Innes said Trump tends to retreat from more aggressive displays, “so I am viewing this thinly veiled threat as political posturing or a tactical decision to apply more pressure on China to put through a trade deal that aligns with the best US economic interest at heart”.

At Bursa, Tasek fell 38 sen to RM5.80 with 2,500 shares done. The shares had rallied after YTL Cement announced it was buying Lafarge Cement.
Carlsberg fell 38 sen to RM25.32 with 300 shares done.

Petronas Dagangan lost 20 sen to RM23.86, MAHB 15 sen to RM7.45, Public Bank 14 sen to RM22.40 while Pentamaster lost 14 sen also to RM4.14.

Hengyuan was down 13 sen to RM5.92, Takaful 11 sen to RM5.94 and Tenaga 10 sen to RM12.20.

Ekovest fell 2.5 sen to 93 sen and the warrants 3.5 sen to 44 sen while IWCIty lost four sen to RM1.01.

Nestle was the top gainer, up 50 sen to RM147, UMW 15 sen to RM5.65 and Aeon Credit 10 sen to RM16.30 while Rexit added nine sen to 75 sen.