Rakuten Trade Sdn Bhd equity research vice-president Thong Pak Leng said he believes today’s selling offers a good opportunity for investors to bargain hunt for stocks at lower levels, especially blue chips.
Thong has also forecasted a prompt rebound in the FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI).
“We project the benchmark index to trend within the 1,600-1,620 range for the rest of the week,” Thong told Bernama.
Regionally, the key indices ended mixed, with the positive sentiment sparked by a rally in US tech stocks.
Meanwhile, soft US retail sales data reinforced expectations of a Federal Reserve (Fed) interest rate cut later this year.
At 5pm, the FBM KLCI shed 0.39% or 6.34 points to its intraday low of 1,599.79 from yesterday’s close of 1,606.13, ending below the key 1,600 level in the process.
The FBM KLCI, which opened 2.34 points higher at 1,608.47, hit an intraday high of 1,609.22 in the early morning session.
On the broader market, losers thumped gainers 907 to 341, while 451 counters were unchanged, 702 untraded, and nine others suspended.
Turnover narrowed to 5.57 billion units valued at RM4.06 billion from yesterday’s 5.92 billion units worth RM4.14 billion.
On the local bourse, heavyweights Petronas Dagangan slid 40 sen to RM17.38, Press Metal dipped 10 sen to RM5.78, IOI Corp and Genting Bhd trimmed six sen each to RM3.75 and RM4.70 respectively, and TM shed eight sen to RM6.73.
For the top losers, Dutch Lady Milk Industries fell 74 sen to RM36.86, SHL eased 24 sen to RM2.54, Chin Hin dropped 21 sen to RM3.13, and Malaysia Pacific Industries sank 20 sen to RM39.70.
Among the most active counters, Top Glove lost three sen to RM1.14, Jaks Resources gained one sen to 19 sen, JCY shed 0.5 sen to 82.5 sen, MyEG slid one sen to RM1.06, and Dagang NeXchange eased 0.5 sen to 49.5 sen.
On the index board, the FBM Emas Index declined 73.1 points to 12,292.04, the FBMT 100 Index gave up 65.62 points to 11,867.5, and the FBM Emas Shariah Index tumbled 104.50 points to 12,634.87.
The FBM 70 Index decreased 174.13 points to 17,931.08, and the FBM ACE Index declined 53.07 points to 5,796.20.
Sector-wise, the financial services index dropped 42.64 points to 17,477.05, the industrial products and services index eased 2.18 points to 197.49, the energy index trimmed 4.96 points to 983.38, and the plantation index was 27.30 points lower at 7,003.17.
The Main Market volume narrowed to 3.31 billion units worth RM3.52 billion from 3.41 billion units worth RM3.58 billion yesterday.
Warrants turnover decreased to 1.19 billion units valued at RM162.56 million compared with 1.27 billion units worth RM186.09 million yesterday.
The ACE Market volume dwindled to 1.05 billion shares worth RM377.5 million against 1.24 billion shares valued at RM379.17 million previously.
Consumer products and services counters accounted for 447.94 million shares traded on the Main Market, industrial products and services (782.21 million), construction (376.41 million), technology (536.57 million), SPAC (nil), financial services (107.32 million), property (263.85 million), plantation (27.8 million), REITs (21.06 million), closed/fund (16,000), energy (210.6 million), healthcare (246.15 million), telecommunications and media (45.04 million), transportation and logistics (95.59 million), utilities (163.49 million), and business trusts (448,700).