KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 30 — Bursa Malaysia is likely to trade on a cautious note next week amid issues surrounding Hong Kong and uncertainties in the United States and China trade deal, says an analyst.
AxiTrade chief Asia market strategist Stephen Innes said the Hong Kong bill issues were still lingering, and traders were getting a bit nervous about December, awaiting further developments in the US-China trade deal, which spooked the equity markets for the week just ended.
Overall the market will be on trade talk headline alert and if a date is announced for the talks and deferral in December tariff is made clear we could see the FBM KLCI move back towards 1,600 but that is a lot of ‘ifs’, he told Bernama.
On Wednesday, US President Donald Trump signed into law two bills supporting Hong Kong protestors. The bills were introduced to preserve Hong Kong’s rights and autonomy, but one of them contained provisions that could end up hurting the economies of the US, China and Hong Kong.
The two bills signed by Trump involve an annual review of the city’s autonomy from China and barring the sale of munitions to Hong Kong police, such as tear gas and rubber bullets.
Bursa Malaysia saw volatile trading for the week just ended, in line with the regional markets, mainly due to concerns about the latest conflicts between the United States and China over the US legislation backing Hong Kong pro-democracy supporters.
The key index ended the month, shedding 22.03 points on Friday, weighed by broad selling activities mainly in technology, utilities and telecommunication stocks amid month-end portfolio rebalancing by the foreign funds.
On a Friday-to-Friday basis, the FBM KLCI declined 35.10 points to 1,561.74 from 1,596.84 previously.
On the scoreboard, the FBM Emas Index decreased 235.64 points to 11,092.85, FBMT 100 Index slipped 229.19 points to 10,909.30, FBM Emas Shariah Index shrugged off 277.63 points to 11,592.50, FBM 70 decreased 225.73 points to 13,877.88 and FBM Ace Index fell 136.70 points to 4,754.30.
Sector-wise, the Financial Services Index contracted 217.57 points to 15,331.62 and the Industrial Products and Services Index slipped 1.62 points to 149.91, while the Plantation Index was 110.73 points weaker, to 7,067.27.
Weekly turnover decreased slightly to 13.17 billion units worth RM11.20 billion from 13.41 billion units worth RM10.18 billion last week.
Main Market volume eased to 8.39 billion units worth RM10.05 billion from 8.94 billion units worth RM6.84 billion.
Warrants turnover inched up to 1.63 billion units worth RM316.22 million versus 1.61 billion units worth RM333.33 million previously.
The ACE Market volume improved to 3.15 billion units worth RM832.85 million from 2.86 billion units worth RM592.59 million. — Bernama
