KUALA LUMPUR, March 29 ― Shares on Bursa Malaysia are likely to stage a further rebound next week driven by inspiring global data amid reduced Ukraine-Russia tensions.

Affin Investment Bank vice president Dr Nazri Khan Adam Khan said the  near-term trend for the benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) firmly favours the bulls.

He said the next immediate support will be at the 1,830 and 1,820 levels with immediate resistance at the 1,850 and 1,880 levels.

“If this uptrend line extends, FBM KLCI should be comfortably testing 1,900 by October 2014 and 2,000 by June 2015,” he told Bernama.  

Unexpected dovish statements from the European Central Bank (ECB) and People's Bank Of China (PBC) also continue to fuel the positive sentiment, Nazri said.

Both ECB and PBC will pursue further quantitative easing in the near term, providing the strongest sources of support to global shares, he said.

“The global equity market tone should see a modest improvement from European economic data, helped by stronger than expected consumer confidence out of France and Italy,” he said.

Bursa Malaysia closed the last week of the first quarter on a strong note, with a weekly gain of 1.5 per cent, due to incoming foreign inflows and safe haven play which helped local investors shrug off negative economic news elsewhere.

On a week-to-week basis, the FBM KLCI rose 45.61 points to 1,850.73.  

The Finance Index went up 320.32 points to 16,608.64, the Industrial Index gained 56.12 points to 3,204.63 and the Plantation Index added 152.6 points to 9,038.13.

The FBM Emas Index perked 275.93 points to 12,787.92, the FBMT100 Index improved 270.37 points to 12,450.26, the FBM 70 rose 159.78 points to 13,912.23 and the FBM Ace expanded 65.75 points to 6,698.64.

Weekly turnover rose to 9.92 billion shares valued at RM10.07 billion from last Friday's 7.29 billion shares worth RM10.08 billion.

Main market volume increased to 5.59 billion shares worth RM9.29 billion from 5.27 billion shares valued at RM9.47 billion last week.

Warrant turnover increased to 394.41 million units valued at RM125.95 million from 94.04 million units worth RM10.91 million previously.

The ACE market volume expanded to 2.29 billion shares worth RM646.67 billion from 1.9 billion shares valued at RM583.36 million last week. ― Bernama