KUALA LUMPUR: The local market is expected to perk up, in line with other Asian equity markets following Wall Street’s record high recently, said Affin Investment Bank.
Vice-president/head of Retail Research Dr Nazri Khan said despite several false starts, the local index should ultimately take on a bullish track ahead of the Wall Street open, and climb into a new high territory.
“While local small capital stocks consolidate with cautious sentiment, impressive rotational interest in local blue chips should showcase healthy risk taking.
“Near-term momentum indicators have flashed golden signals and entered into positive territory, suggesting more good news ahead to keep buyers active,” he told Bernama.
He said the market trend across all time frames is positive on the FTSE Bursa Malaysia Kuala Lumpur Composite Index (FBM KLCI) close above the 20-day, 50-day and 200-day moving average, confirming the bullish market’s posture and possibly more upside follow-through in the next session.
The benchmark index is expected to rebound with high liners such as plantation, technology as well as trade and service stocks to charge bigger funds inflow, with the next area of resistance pegged at between 1,890 and 1,900 points.
Nazri said local news that could catalyse markets include Felda Investment Corp’s move to take Encorp private through a mandatory general offer of RM477.2 million and Icon Offshore Bhd’s plan to raise up to RM945 million from its initial public offering.
“Stock-wise, traders should accumulate World Cup-linked blue chip stocks, such as TM, Axiata, Digi, Astro, Dutch Lady, Gtronic, MPI, Hapseng, IJMPlant and KMLoong,” he added.
For the week just ended, the Finance Index rose 304.43 points to 17,382.62, the Plantation Index fell 140.78 points to 9,074.46 and the Industrial Index decreased 6.77 points to 3,190.22.
The FBM Emas Index increased 21.8 points to 12,945.75, the FBMT100 Index added 21.01 points to 12,595.27, but the FBM Ace erased 17.34 points to 6,581.33 and the FBM 70 shed 3.81 points to 14,045.23.
Weekly turnover fell to 7.56 billion shares worth RM13.62 billion, from last week’s 9.6 billion shares worth RM10.5 billion.
Main market volume was down at 5.96 billion shares valued at RM13.21 billion, from 7.42 billion shares valued at RM10.03 billion recorded last week.
Warrant turnover depreciated to 251.64 million units worth RM46.38 million, from 276.33 million units worth RM40.8 million recorded previously.
The ACE market volume decreased to 1.21 billion shares valued at RM332.67 million, from 1.67 billion shares valued at RM403.68 million registered last Friday. — Bernama