KUALA LUMPUR: Bursa Malaysia opened to a bloodbath on Monday with over 700 counters diving into the red and the benchmark index plunging 3% as Trump's trade war shocked markets across the globe.

The FBM KLCI shed nearly 30 points at the start to 1,475.31, its worst opening since the Covid outbreak in March 2020.

As at 9.12am, the FBMKLCI was down 63 points to 1,441.29, breaking well below the support levels of 1,500 and 1,450 pegged by technical analysts. The current trading levels serve as a 17-month low last seen in November 2023.

No stocks were spared with sharp selling dragging down all the market sectors. Among some of the leading losers, Maybank plunged 31 sen to RM9.93, Tenaga Nasional dove 42 sen to RM13.06 and Nestle lost RM2.26 to RM70.74.

Last week, China announced retaliatory tariffs against the US following Trump's implementation of reciprocal tariffs on its trading partners, risking the threat of a full-blown trade war that could drag the global economy into a recession.

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While most analysts agreed that the market outlook was dismal, TA Securities held out hope that the tariffs exchange could ease up moving forward.

"The possibility for bilateral negotiations ahead with the Trump administration could mitigate the adverse market sentiment," it said in its market commentary.

At the time of writing, Wall Street futures were indicating yet another session of heavy selling tonight. The S&P 500 mini was down about 3% while the Dow mini pointed to a 2.5% loss.