KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 8 — Bursa Malaysia will likely continue to trade within a narrow range next week, hovering between the 1,680 and 1,700 levels, mainly driven by volatility in the external market.
Rakutan Trade Sdn Bhd Head of Research Kenny Yee said major factors emanating from the US-China 90-day truce to resolve their differences over trade would have an impact on the market.
At the recent G20 summit in Buenos Aires, both US President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, reached an agreement to hold off on slapping additional tariffs on each other’s goods after January 1, 2019, as talks continued between both countries.
Trump decided not to impose further tariffs on US$200 billion (RM800 billion) of Chinese goods, while Xi agreed to buy an unspecified, but “very substantial” amount of American agricultural, energy, industrial and other products.
“However, the outcome of G20 will only play a small part. The world market will be closely watching the US Federal Reserve’s decision on its rate hike but as of now, the US economy is weakening, hence a potential cause to pause the hike.
“For the US stock market, we may see more money flowing out from the US equities... some may flow into Asia but most of them will be channelled into the bond market,” he told Bernama.
Yee expressed hope that the barometer index on Bursa Malaysia could close the year at the 1,800-level but he doubted it would happen, especially with the downgrading seen on the earnings after the third quarter of 2018.
“We are putting around the 1,780-level for the KLCI index... the only positive thing on the local bourse is the addition of the two new constituents, namely AMMB and Top Glove, replacing TM and KLCCP.
“These two stocks should provide more stability (instead of TM and KLCCP),” he said, adding that AMMB was one of the stocks worth buying ahead of the year-end.
For the week just ended, Bursa Malaysia traded mostly lower on external factors, including investors volatility optimism on the ongoing US-China trade deal, as well as the announcement of a slower interest rate increase by the US Federal Reserve.
The local stock market was also influenced by the performances on Wall Street and regional markets, as well as crude oil prices.
On a Friday-to-Friday basis, the benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) settled 0.68 of-a-point better at 1,680.54.
The FBM Emas Index fell 6.80 points to 11,597.54, the FBMT100 Index slipped 0.13 of-a-point to 11,479.92 and the FBM Emas Shariah Index eased 25.21 points to 11,608.23.
The FBM 70 lost 18.92 points to 13,522.99 and the FBM Ace was 80.04 points lower at 4,684.39.
Sector-wise, the Finance Index bucked the trend, rising 65.82 points to 17,435.04, but the Industrial Products and Services Index edged down 1.39 points to 169.04, while the Plantation Index was 18.16 points weaker at 6,835.11.
Comparing Friday-to-Friday, the weekly turnover depreciated to 10.81 billion units valued at RM9.4 billion from10.84 billion units worth RM13.13 billion.
Main Market volume was at 7.72 billion units worth RM8.58 billion versus 7.72 billion units valued at RM12.47 billion.
Warrants turnover rose to 1.87 billion units valued at RM462.77 million from1.83 billion units worth RM414.34 million.
The ACE Market volume was lower at 990.56 million shares worth RM211.72 million compared with 1.25 billion shares valued at RM257.08 million. — Bernama
