On February 1, US President Trump issued an executive order to impose a 25% tariff on imports from Canada and Mexico, and a 10% tariff on Chinese imports, which will take effect on February 4. Canada, Mexico and China have indicated that they will take countermeasures. The trade war is imminent and has caused global stock markets to fluctuate.

Affected by the tariff policy, the Malaysian stock market opened lower this morning. As of 9:10 am, the index fell 5.81 points or 0.37%, temporarily reporting 1551.11 points.

After Trump announced the tariff decision last Friday (1st), the three major US stock indexes fell sharply during the session. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed down 337.47 points or 0.75%, the S&P 500 fell 0.50%, and the Nasdaq fell slightly by 0.28%.

Asian stock markets were under pressure this morning, with Japanese and Korean stock markets opening sharply lower, down 2.33% and 2.88% respectively. The Nikkei index plunged more than 1,000 points during the session, and market sentiment was clearly affected.

Healthcare and construction stocks rose

Looking back at the trend of the Malaysian stock market, the KLCI opened at 1547.56 points this morning, 9.36 points lower than the opening of 1556.92 points last Friday, and temporarily reported 1551.11 points.

As of 9:10 am, the volume of the Malaysian stock market was 220.36 million shares, and the transaction value was RM102.99 million. Most of the stocks fell, with a total of 254 stocks falling, 124 stocks rising and 281 stocks flat.

From the perspective of the sector index, most sectors of the Malaysian stock market fell, with only the health care stock index and the construction stock index rising by 1.5% and 0.4% respectively.