KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 4 — Shares on Bursa Malaysia are expected to see range-bound profit-taking next week ahead of the coming Chinese New Year after the recent strong gains.

Affin Investment Bank Bhd vice-president/head of retail research, Dr Nazri Khan, said the market had finally digested its long rally after scoring 102 points since November 14.

“The local benchmark bulls have paused for breath,” he told Bernama. On the global front, Nazri said, optimism in the economic recovery in the US and Europe could eventually lift the local market.

“The US economic recovery and the European economic U-turn are the keys to the sustainability of this bull market,” said Nazri.

However, there could be a selldown by global investors seeking to temporarily lock profits after the strong gains last year, he said. The current weakness has presented a second chance to accumulate before capitalising on a new wave of upside momentum ahead.

“We expect our bull market to continue and traders should therefore take advantage of dips to add to positions,” he said.

On the technical front, the index was likely to re-challenge the 1,882-point resistance level once profit-taking was fully absorbed, Nazri said. Immediate support would stay at 1,840 and immediate resistance at 1,850, and finally the psychological level at 1,900.

For the week just ended, the market saw post-window-dressing blues after the New Year holiday on Wednesday. The index finished the last day of trading for 2013 at a record intra-day high of 1,882.2. It recorded an all-time high of 1,872.52 a day before on window-dressing.

On a Friday-to-Friday basis, the FBM KLCI fell 26.32 points to 1,834.74 and the Finance Index declined 96.8 points to 16,804.1. The Industrial Index slipped 24.17 points to 3,131.99 and the Plantation Index decreased 54.21 points to 8,827.01.

The FBM Emas Index fell 137.08 points to 12,678.75 and the FBMT100 Index dropped 149.6 points to 12,402.72. The FBM 70 went down 57.55 points to 14,093.74 but the FBM Ace rose 53.66 points to 5,676.52.

Weekly total turnover increased to 5.34 billion shares valued at RM5.91 billion from 3.93 billion shares valued at RM3.78 billion last week. Main market volume increased to 4.15 billion shares worth RM5.67 billion from 2.85 billion shares worth RM3.54 billion the previous Friday.

Warrant turnover went up to 154.81 million units valued at RM17.29 million from 120.59 million units valued at RM14.58 million last week. The ACE market volume rose to 1.03 billion shares worth RM217.98 million from 943.23 million shares worth RM150.29 million the previous Friday. — Bernama