Bursa Malaysia expected to rebound

KUALA LUMPUR: Bursa Malaysia is expected to rebound, with the key index moving in firmer territory and backed by bargain hunting activities in bluechips among foreign investors, dealers said.

Malaysian Association of Technical Analysts, president, Nik Ihsan Rajaj Abdullah told Bernama

Short-hort-term rates are expected to remainemain stable with Bank NeNegara MMalaysiali (BNM) liklikelyl tto intervene by offering tenders to absorb surplus liquidity from the system.

For the week just ended, the overnight rate was quoted at 2.97 per cent, while the oneweek, two and three-week rates stood at 3.02, 3.06, and 3.11 per cent respectively.

The central bank intervened on a daily basis to mop up excess liquidity by conducting conventional money market tenders, Qard tenders, reverse repo, repo, range-maturity auction money market tenders, Islamic range-maturity auction money market tenders, Commodity Murabahah Programme tenders, and a BNM Interbank Bill.

The total liquidity surplus in the conventional system for the week just ended narrowed to RM31.41 billion from RM34.7 billion last week.

In the Islamic system, it rose to RM10.21 billion from RM5.02 billion previously. the benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI), is likely to hover between the 1,720 and 1,723 levels.

He said should the momentum remain on an upside, the next resistance level would be at 1,751, and the belief that strong demand for Tenaga would continue and drive the composite index fur- ther.

“Focus would be centred on the steel as well as second- and thirdliner stocks, he said.

“Stocks to be watch out for include technology-related counters, as sentiment would be clouded with the recent sell-off on Wall Street’s Nasdaq Composite, which declined to almost two per cent on Thursday,” he added.

On a Thursday to Friday comparison, the benchmark FBM KLCI gained 0.63 of-a-point to 1,717.86 on Thursday from 1,717.23 recorded on last Friday, with the market being mostly influenced by external factors.

Bursa Malaysia was closed on Dec 1 in conjunction with Maulidur Rasul.

The FBM Emas Index rose 15.07 points to 12,408.31, the FBMT 100 Index increased 22.57 points to 12,069.46, the FBM Emas Shariah Index soared 80.89 points to 12,920.15 and the FBM 70 climbed 95.97 points to 15,440.48.

The FBM Ace, however, dropped 90.99 points to 6,311.63.

On a sectoral basis, the Finance Index trimmed 12.39 points to 15,926.33, the Plantation Index eased 17.8 points to 7,894.19, while the Industrial Index improved 48.8 points to 3,172.89.

Total turnover declined to 7.87 billion units worth RM12.7 billion from 10.41 billion units valued at RM11.51 last Friday.

Main Market volume fell to 5.44 billion shares worth RM12.32 billion from 6.6 billion shares valued at RM10.84 billion.

Warrants turnover weakened to 938.2 million units worth RM102.83 million versus last week’s 1.17 billion units valued at RM142.81 million.

The ACE Market shrank to 1.47 billion shares worth RM275.19 million from 2.6 billion shares valued at RM526.05 million transacted ppreviously.y — Bernama THE three- month Kuala Lumpur Interbank Offered Rate (KLIBOR) futures contract on Bursa Malaysia Derivatives is expected to remain quiet on lack of market catalysts.

For the week just ended, the market was untraded with open interest remaining at nil.

On a Thursday- to- Friday basis, both December 2017 and January 2018 stood at 96.50, February 2018 remained at 96.48 and March 2018 was pegged at 96.45.

The underlying three-month KLIBOR on the cash market remained at 3.43 per cent on Thursday.