Bursa Malaysia to trend higher towards 1,770 points level

KUALA LUMPUR: Bursa Malaysia is likely to trend higher with the benchmark index inching towards the 1,770-level, thanks to positive local economic headlines and strong Wall Street performance.

Affin Hwang Investment Bank vice-president and head of Retail Research Datuk Dr Nazri Khan Adam Khan said FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI ( FBM KLCI) should stabilise and take a higher track despite the imminent US Federal Reserve interest rate hike in June againstg a backdrop of falling crude oil prices.

“The FBM KLCI is holding steady and maintained an impressive uptrend gain of 7.7 per cent for the year-to-date, despite the rolling corrective market,” he told Bernama.

Nazri said positive local economic headlines should cushion any broad market price weakness following the announcement on the termination of the 60 per cent share sale agreement for Bandar Malaysia.

“The local market should welcome 1Malaysia Development Bhd ( 1MDB) Chairman Tan Sri Irwan Serigar Abdullah’s statement which reaffirmed that the Bandar Malaysia project would go ahead after the lapse of the RM7.41 billion deal, “he said.

However, Nazri indicated that the government’s intention to call for a private sector tender, to establish up a privately-financed asset company for the Kuala Lumpur-Singapore High-Speed Rail project, would generate early stock speculative play in the local construction sector.

On the impact from Wall Street, he said global markets, including Bursa Malaysia, should rebound from the subsiding European political risk as the French Presidential Election would be finalised on May 7, 2017.

“With the domestic sentiment being driven by strong Wall Street showing over the last few weeks, we opine that the FBM KLCI will continue to trade higher in the near future,” he said.

For the holiday-shortened week (the market was closed on Monday for the Labour Day holiday), the local bourse was traded rangeboun.

The index hit a one-year high on Tuesday, on buying support in finance-linked counters, and fell to a two-week low on Thursday due to the halted Bandar Malaysia share deal issue.

On a week-to-week basis, the FBM KLCI trimmed 5.32 points to 1,762.74 from 1,768.06 last Friday.

The FBM Emas Index lost 33.99 points to 12,597.53, the FBMT 100 Index declined 37.48 points to 12,221.78 and the FBM Emas Shariah Index eased 35.72 points to 12,936.77.

The FBM 70 erased 48.41 points to 15,032.56 but the FBM Ace advanced 58.67 points to 6,300.83.

On a sectoral basis, the Finance Index fell 63.09 points to 16,238.08, the Plantation Index gave up 33.01 points to 8,064.33 but the Industrial Index was up 15.5 points to 3,234.67.

Turnover for the shorter week expanded to 14.85 billion units, worth RM9.31 billion, from 13.76 billion units, valued at RM11.90 billion, recorded last week.

Main Market volume increased to 9.75 billion shares, valued at RM11.22 billion, from last week’s 8.93 billion shares worth RM11.19 billion.

The ACE Market improved to 3.77 billion units, worth RM546.15 million, from 3.41 billion shares, valued at RM564.78 million, traded previously.

Warrants’ turnover, however, shrank to 1.19 billion units, worth RM132.88 million, from 1.35 billion units worth, RM146.6 million, transacted last week. — Bernama