Bursa Malaysia will likely trade sideways

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KUALA LUMPUR: Bursa Malaysia will likely trade sideways, with the benchmark index expected to be trapped between 1,660 and 1,680 levels, on fresh concerns over US interest rates.

Affin Hwang Investment Bank vice-president and head of Retail Research Datuk Dr Nazri Khan Adam Khan said the FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI would remain sideways until the US Federal Reserve gave more positive hints on the direction of its monetary policy during its upcoming meeting in December.

“Currently, they are quite vague about it. Furthermore, the local currency, which remained weak at about RM4.1 against the US dollar, coupled with lower oil prices, will dampen buying sentiment,” he told Bernama.

During the week, the US Federal Reserve and Bank of Japan decided to maintain their interest rates level, which helped to ease investors anxieties and lifted market sentiment.

For the week just ended, the benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI was 18 points higher at 1,670.99 compared with 1,652.99 last Thursday.

On a week-to-week basis, the FBM Emas Index rose 135.78 points to 11,810.22, the FBMT 100 Index increased 132.35 points to 11,511.79 and the FBM Emas Syariah Index was 156.49 points better at 12,483.72.

On a sectoral basis, the Finance Index added 31.54 points to 14,248.42, the Industrial Index rose 44.95 points to 3,144.18 and the Plantation Index added 111.73 points to 7,958.34.

Weekly turnover improved to 8.2 billion units worth RM9.21 billion from 4.09 billion units worth RM5.65 billion last week.

Main market volume advanced to 5.14 billion shares worth RM8.67 billion from 2.78 billion shares worth RM5.43 billion transacted previously.

Warrant turnover was higher at 1.93 billion shares valued at RM359.65 million from 639.56 million shares valued at RM123.05 million.

The ACE market rose to 1.16 billion shares worth RM168.48 million from 462.11 million shares worth RM97.94 million last week. — Bernama