KUALA LUMPUR: Bursa Malaysia will likely continue its downtrend on profit-taking ahead of the coming New Year, said Affin Hwang Investment Bank vice-president and head of retail research, Datuk Dr Nazri Khan Adam Khan.
He said trading would likely be influenced by external factors, among them, the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries’ revision downwards of its oil demand forecast 2015, US’ expected increase in interest rate and the tepid global economic data from China/Japan.
“It seems traders and investors could not resist the temptation to nail down profits before the start of the New Year.
“So far we have no technical evidence of a serious downleg despite the weakness.
The market action suggests more correction creeping into the over-extended large-capitalised local blue-chips,” he told Bernama.
On the domestic front, Nazri said, investors were encouraged that Malaysia has posted 9.1 per cent growth in investments in the first nine months of this year compared with the same period in 2013.
“We believe this trend suggests a healthy investment inflow, steady investor confidence and underlies that Malaysia is still attractive to foreign investors, especially from China and Singapore despite the broad Bursa Malaysia correction and ringgit jitters,” he said.
On Friday, Malaysia Airlines closed half a sen lower at 26.5 sen on its last trading day on the Main Market of Bursa Malaysia.
For the week-just-ended, the benchmark index closed 76.14 points lower at 1,732.99 dampened by the sell-offs in blue-chips and selected key heavyweights.
The FBM Emas Index erased 611.46 points to 11,866.47, FBMT100 Index eased 537.62 points to 11,616.85, the FBM 70 tumbled 699.26 points to 12,824.45 and the FBM Ace lost 999.83 points to 5,552.5.
Sector-wise, the Industrial Index fell 135.08 points to 3,138.29, Finance Index gave up 729.97 points for 15,463.00 and the Plantation Index eased 427.89 points to 7,767.48.
Weekly turnover decreased to 6.58 billion shares, worth RM8.12 billion from 9.76 billion shares, worth RM11.16 billion last week.
Main market volume declined to 4.54 billion shares, valued at RM7.55 billion against 7.07 billion units valued at RM10.52 billion previously.
Warrants’ turnover rose to 754.81 million shares valued at RM785.49 million versus 648.18 million shares, valued at RM153.03 million.
The ACE market volume went down 1.27 billion shares, worth RM257.06 million from 2.02 billion shares, worth RM488.15 million transacted previously. — Bernama