Rakuten Trade Sdn Bhd equity research vice-president Thong Pak Leng said traders are expected to continue accumulating these counters in response to the recent selldown.
He noted that the FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) closed at an almost one-month high yesterday, buoyed by Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s recent comments on the equity market.
On Monday, Anwar announced several measures, among which was a reduction in the stamp duty for equities transactions from 0.15% to 0.1%, to breathe life into the market.
Thong said that if the benchmark index stays above the 1,390-point level today, it could breach the 1,400 level next.
The market closed at 1,393.45 points yesterday.
However, a decline on Wall Street overnight that was triggered by US Federal Reserve (Fed) chair Jerome Powell’s hawkish comments, reversed the positive sentiment from yesterday.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 102 points while the Nasdaq declined by 165 points as the US Treasury’s 10-year yield inched marginally higher to 3.727%.
The FBM KLCI began the day at 1,392.12 points, but settled at 1,392.81 points five minutes later.
On the broader market, losers led gainers 117 to 105, while 205 counters were unchanged, 1,867 were not traded and 19 others were suspended.
The turnover stood at 123.6 million units worth RM42.25 million.
Among the heavyweights, CIMB fell three sen to RM5.22 and Tenaga Nasional added three sen to RM9.22, while Maybank, Public Bank and IHH Healthcare were flat at RM8.74, RM3.91 and RM5.87 respectively.
Of the actives, Vinvest Capital and Bintai eased half-a-sen each to seven sen and 7.5 sen respectively, while Bumi Armada added a sen to 49.5 sen, Tanco edged up half-a-sen to 51.5 sen and Classita was flat at 9.5 sen.
On the index board, the FBM Emas Index was 3.86 points easier at 10,246.60, the FBMT 100 Index dropped 5.49 points to 9,945.97, the FBM Emas Shariah Index slid 0.24 of-a-point to 10,516.16 and the FBM 70 Index declined 11.36 points to 13,466.52, while the FBM ACE Index gained 26.25 points to 5,114.27.
Sector-wise, the financial services index eased 3.07 points to 15,469.22, the industrial products and services index trimmed 0.27 of-a-point to 159.02 and the plantation index shed 4.65 points to 6,719.72, while the energy index added 4.88 points to 788.77.