Bursa Malaysia likely to see an uptrend

Bursa Malaysia is likely to consolidate and trade sideways, in taking the cue from regional peers’ performance, analysts said.

Hermana Capital Bhd chief executive officer and chief investment officer Datuk Dr Nazri Khan Adam Khan said the Bursa Malaysia barometer index, which has climbed more than 100 points in the past three weeks, is expected to see some overbought correction.

“With oil prices inched down, persistent worries on US- China trade war as well as continued foreign selling, although dissipating particularly in utilities stocks, the regional sentiment seemed weak.

“Thus we expect the local equity to consolidate and trend side-ways,” he told Bernama.

However, he noted that the second half of the year is traditionally the period when the local market would see higher foreign funds inflow.

Rakuten Trade head of Research Kenny Yee said the recent uptrend in local bourse was dominated by local buyers.

The market is expected to remain lacklustre as investors would now be looking at corporate results over in the US and also in Malaysia for market direction, he said.

“So we do not foresee any strong buying ahead on the local bourse amid continued foreign selling.

“Therefore, we expect the FBM KLCI to trend at a range of between 1,750 and 1,770,” he added.

For the week just ended, Bursa Malaysia ended higher for five consecutive days in tracking regional peers, while taking the cue from Wall Street as the market digested a slew of corporate earnings results and developments in the US-China and US-Europe trade war.

On a Friday-to-Friday basis, the benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI was 14.47 points firmer at 1,769.14 from 1,754.67.

The FBM Emas Index advanced 137.97 points to 12,558.28 and the FBMT100 Index soared 127.98 points to 12,337.06.

The FBM 70 surged 261.57 points to 15,494.81, the FBM Emas Shariah Index bagged 181.82 points to 12,691.33 and the FBM Ace climbed 55.87 points to 5,459.14.

On a sectoral basis, the Finance Index rose 126.90 points to 17,453.25, the Plantation Index improved 72.13 points to 7,552.36 and the Industrial Index was up 70.75 points at 3,284.91.

Weekly turnover widened to 15.59 billion units valued at RM12.33 billion, from 13.39 billion units valued at RM11.86 billion.

Main market volume expanded to 10.36 billion shares valued at RM10.77 billion, from 8.22 billion shares valued at RM10.33 billion.

Warrants turnover decreased to 2.90 billion units valued at RM871.01 million, from 3.00 billion units valued at RM873 million.

The ACE market volume rose to 2.33 billion shares valued at RM692.01 million, from 2.15 billion shares valued at RM651.19 million. — Bernama