Bursa Malaysia likely to consolidate further next week

KUALA LUMPUR, April 2 ― Bursa Malaysia is likely to consolidate below 1,700-level next week on lack of boost.

A dealer said negative sentiment shrouded overall regional markets as Standard & Poor's had revised downward China's sovereign credit rating to negative from stable.

Weaker business sentiment among Japanese big manufacturers further weighed on the markets and would likely have a spillover effect next week.         

“The FBM KLCI is likely to dip below the 1,700-level should the Wall Street close its trading on Friday low. Local key index movement would also take cue of the oil movement next week,” he told Bernama.

The market would also be monitoring the US non-farm payrolls for March released on Friday to dictate further actions.

Trading on the local bourse started off lower before rebounding higher on Tuesday following remarks made by US Federal Reserve (Fed) Chair Janet Yellen that Fed should cautiously proceed to hike its interest rates on global economic uncertainty.

However, the local market ended lower on weak trading sentiment.

On a weekly basis, the benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) finished 6.76 points higher at 1,710.55.

The FBM Emas Index rose 62.82 points to 11,874.54, the FBMT100 Index expanded 59.53 points to 11,573.15 and the FBM Emas Shariah Index edged up 2.0 points to 12,463.58.

On a sectoral basis, the Plantation Index declined 32.89 points to 7,846.29, the Industrial Index fell 5.81 points to 3,264.71 while the Finance Index surged 192.72 points to 14,682.12.

Weekly turnover fell to 8.33 billion units valued at RM10.07 billion from 9.48 billion units valued at RM10.40 billion last week.

Main market volume decreased to 6.0 billion shares valued at RM9.73 billion from 6.81 billion shares valued at RM9.98 billion previously.

Warrant turnover eased to 1.32 billion units valued at RM154.63 million from 1.33 billion units valued at RM180.59 million last week.

The ACE market fell to 989.34 million shares worth RM186.31 million from 1.33 billion shares worth RM213.08 million previously. ― Bernama