KUALA LUMPUR: Bursa Malaysia is likely to continue to trade sideways, with the benchmark index expected to be trapped between 1,660 and 1,680 points due to the weak market sentiment, said Affin Hwang Investment Bank.
Its president/head of Retail Research, Datuk Dr Nazri Khan Adam Khan, said the market will be concerned over the better US third-quarter gross domestic product data.
“The positive results of the world’s biggest economy has increased the prospects of an interest rate increase by the Federal Reserve in December which will also affect the local stock market,” he told Bernama.
He said the market would see profit-taking as there were higher interest rate yield globally, especially in US and Europe.
On the oil prices, Nazri said, investors were hoping to see it improved further and boost the local bourse in the long run.
“As Malaysia is among the oil exporter countries, any news about the higher oil prices will be the catalyst to cushion our market,” he said.
Recently, it was reported that the Malaysia’s national oil company will make its final investment decision in December to whether to offer a 50 per cent stake in its Refinery and Petrochemical Integrated Development Project in Johor to Saudi Aramco.
“This factor could boost the investors’ appetite and improved the composite index in the near term,”he said.
For the week just-ended, the benchmark FBM KLCI added 1.24 points to 1,670.27 compared with 1,669.98 last Friday.
On a week-to-week basis, the FBM Emas Index declined by 26.22 points to 11,783.90, FBMT 100 Index fell 23.98 points to 11,485.75 and the FBM Emas Syariah Index was 19.07 points lower at 12,442.37.
The FBM Ace fell by 11.13 points to 5,113.73 and the FBM 70 declined 122.65 points to 13,756.45.
On a sectoral basis, the Finance Index surged 96.71 points to 14,526.05, the Industrial Index gained 14.71 points to 3,157.51 and the Plantation Index perked 3.85 points to 7,957.51.
Weekly turnover increased to 7.58 billion units worth RM8.62 billion versus 5.75 billion units worth RM8.51 billion last Friday.
Main market volume rose to 4.97 billion units worth RM8.12 billion against 4.62 billion units worth RM8.15 billion last week.
Warrant turnover fell to 1.16 billion shares valued at RM169.26 million compared with 1.34 billion shares valued at RM145.10 million previously.
The ACE market surged to 4.09 billion shares worth RM224.95 million compared with 1.34 billion shares worth RM145.10 million last week. — Bernama