KUALA LUMPUR, March 7 — The FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) is expected to trade in a tight range of between 1,480 and 1,490 next week, as investors remain cautious over global economic uncertainties due to the COVID-19 outbreak.
Bank Islam Malaysia Bhd chief economist Mohd Afzanizam Abdul Rashid said the coronavirus spread outside China had become a more pressing issue.
“Thus far, major central banks have been forthcoming in their reactions to COVID-19 by delivering massive interest cuts to support the economy.
“Fiscal authorities have also played a role by prescribing fiscal pump priming measures to provide support to the domestic demand.
“In that sense, demand management policies have been fully deployed and should provide comfort to investors that growth revival could be on the horizon,” he told Bernama.
He noted that the support level currently stood at 1,456 points while the resistance level was at 1,512 points.
Afzanizam said technical indicators suggested that the index was hovering at an oversold position, implying that technical correction could happen in the immediate term.
For the week just ended, Hong Leong Investment Bank Research in a note said it was another rough week for global markets with equities experiencing major ups and downs throughout the week as investors struggled to look past the COVID-19 fears.
It said US stocks were particularly volatile but key US indices still notched around two to three per cent gains, thanks to Monday’s boost from the Federal Reserve’s emergency rate cut and Joe Biden-led surge on Wednesday.
For next week, the research house noted that markets would turn their attention to the European Central Bank’s (ECB) Governing Council meeting to announce stimulus measures with the market largely expecting a further cut in deposit rate by 10 basis points to -0.6 per cent.
On a Friday-to-Friday basis, the FBM KLCI edged up 0.46 of a point to 1,483.10 from 1,482.64 previously.
On the scoreboard, the FBM Emas Index gave up 33.80 points to 10,444.97, the FBMT 100 Index decreased 26.57 points to 10,274.23, the FBM Emas Shariah Index eased 0.80 of a point to 11,120.35 and the FBM 70 fell 156.34 points to 12,717.58.
The FBM ACE Index improved 6.88 points to 5,245.17.
Sector-wise, the Financial Services Index added 5.91 points to 14,336.56, the Industrial Products and Services Index gained 2.43 points to 135.23 while the Plantation Index erased 76.70 points to 6,733.04.
Weekly turnover shrank to 15.85 billion units worth RM12.51 billion compared with last week’s 19.61 billion units worth RM17.14 billion.
Main Market volume fell to 9.97 billion units worth RM11.31 billion from 12.85 billion shares valued at RM15.50 billion previously.
Warrants turnover slipped to 2.04 billion units worth RM341.76 million compared with 2.39 billion units worth RM420.73 million last week.
The ACE Market volume declined to 3.83 billion shares worth RM852.22 million from 4.46 billion shares valued at RM1.21 billion last week. — Bernama
