Bank Islam chief economist Mohd Afzanizam Abdul Rashid said the FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI is expected to linger around 1,450 next week and would continue to remain lacklustre as uncertainties over global economic prospects have heightened.

“The major central banks are seen to be adamant to raise their benchmark interest rates in a bid to ward off inflationary pressures. This would effectively reduce global liquidity,” he told Bernama.

The US Federal Reserve on Wednesday increased its interest rate by 75 basis points to between 1.50% and 1.75% after its Federal Open Market Committee meeting.

Afzanizam reckons that institutional investors are most likely to increase their cash holdings given the volatile market condition.

On Friday, the FBM KLCI fell 16.03 points to end at 1,456.74 with 726 decliners against 267 gainers.

On a weekly basis, the FBM KLCI slipped 37.21 points to end the week at 1,456.74 from 1,493.95 in the previous week.

Weekly turnover was higher at 13.95 billion units valued at RM11.06 billion against 11.03 billion units valued at RM7.49 billion last week.

The Main Market volume widened to 8.34 billion shares worth RM9.84 billion from 6.42 billion shares worth RM6.28 billion in the previous week.

The ACE Market volume strengthened to 2.95 billion shares worth RM745.4 million from 2.94 billion shares worth RM916.51 million the week before.