The widespread rebound on Wall Street last week, which has already given the FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) a positive start this morning, is expected to pump up investors’ confidence further.
The benchmark index began the day at 1,432.30 points, up 1.6 points from last Friday’s close of 1,431.04 points.
Just 10 minutes into the day’s trading, it gained another 1.86 points to settle at 1,434.16 points. In its report this morning, Malacca Securities Sdn Bhd attributed the climb to on improved risk appetite.
The market breath remained positive, with 199 gainers compared with 123 losers. Another 226 counters were unchanged, 1,693 more were not traded, and another 11 were suspended.
The turnover stood at 224.99 million units worth RM77.31 million.
Malacca Securities said the better performance on Bursa was led by a rebound on Wall Street from a four-day slump last Friday.
The Dow Jones Index rose 1.7% on the back of strong jobs data and robust corporate earnings, offsetting concerns over a recession in the US.
Malacca Securities also noted that the FBM KLCI closed higher on Friday despite mixed performance in regional markets.
There will be more key economic indicators that will have an impact on the markets this week. They include the US inflation rate, Malaysia’s unemployment rate and its first quarter gross domestic product growth rate.
Sector-wise, it also expects the significant surge on Nasdaq to boost buying momentum on local technology counters while the resilient gold prices could woo investors to counters related to the precious metal.
“Meanwhile, the electric vehicle sector may come under the limelight as Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim yesterday highlighted Malaysia’s intention to attract more Chinese companies to spur the domestic automotive sector in alignment with ESG goals,” it added.
However, equity research analyst Aziz Rahman at Mercury Securities Sdn Bhd took a more cautious stance in his take for the new week.
“We expect Malaysian equities to maintain a sideways trend, primarily driven by investor wariness stemming from external uncertainties and increased volatility in regional markets,” he said in his report this morning.
Of the heavyweight counters, Maybank was down a sen to RM8.74 while Public Bank and Tenaga Nasional added a sen each to RM4.02 and RM8.99 respectively. Petronas Chemicals and CIMB were four sen higher each at RM7.10 and RM5.17 respectively.
Among the actives, Vinvest and Computer Forms gained a sen each to 21 sen and 25.5 sen respectively. Salutica increased 10 sen to 72.5 sen, while Hong Seng and Sapura Energy were flat at 12 sen and four sen respectively.
On the index board, the FBM Emas Index advanced 21.30 points to 10,479.55, the FBMT 100 Index edged up 19.88 points to 10,173.71 and the FBM Emas Shariah Index improved 13.64 points to 10,772.38.
The FBM ACE Index was 1.47 points firmer at 5,214.47 and the FBM 70 index earned 16.81 points to 13,498.34.
Sector-wise, the industrial products and services index climbed up 1.01 points to 170.50, the financial services index strengthened 51.43 points to 15,760.17 and the energy index grew 8.83 points to 837.07.
The plantation index rose 2.12 points to 6,835.91.