KUALA LUMPUR, March 27 — Market participants are being watchful on global economic recovery and developments pertaining to the grounded Panama-flagged container ship, ‘Ever Given’ over the next week, resulting in cautious sentiment on Bursa Malaysia, said an economist.
Adam Mohamed Rahim of Bank Islam Malaysia Bhd added that investors will be focused on whether the Suez Canal blockage caused by the massive-sized container ship could be resolved by early next week, as failure to do so will raise the prospect of further supply chain delays.
“Nevertheless such a situation could be a positive for oil price as charter rates for oil tankers transporting oil will rise and could subsequently impact oil prices,” he told Bernama.
Looking at next week, he said the benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) could trade in a range of 1,600 points to 1,615 points on an upside bias.
On Friday, Brent Crude rose two per cent to US$63.16 per barrel.
For the week just ended, lack of market moving catalysts locally had caused a sombre mood throughout.
Internationally, US bond yields, economic sanctions by western countries on China over the Uyghur issue, volatile global and regional markets as well as the Suez Canal incident have weighed on the local bourse.
On a Friday-to-Friday basis, the benchmark FBM KLCI fell 24.77 points to 1,601.42 from last Friday’s 1,626.19.
On the scoreboard, the FBM Emas Index dipped 144.92 points to 11,778.29, the FBMT 100 Index reduced 157.6 points to 11,443.98 and the FBM Emas Shariah Index declined 151.73 points to 13,078.16.
The FBM 70 slumped 214.76 points to 15,550.46 and the FBM ACE Index erased 172.23 points to 10,517.11.
Sector-wise, the Industrial Products and Services Index narrowed 1.72 points to 191.41, the Plantation Index fell 75.17 points to 7,100.45, the Technology Index was 0.81 of-a-point easier at 83.19 and the Healthcare Index was down 31.08 points to 3,016.57.
The Financial Services Index slumped 209.36 points to 15,300.29 and the Energy Index declined 9.61 points to 950.99.
Turnover dropped to 27.58 billion units worth RM14.63 billion from 53.03 billion units worth RM26.24 billion in the previous week.
Main Market volume declined to 16.44 billion shares worth RM11.42 billion from 34.85 billion shares valued at RM21.24 billion last week.
Warrants volume depleted to 828.19 million units worth RM176.07 million from 1.70 billion units worth RM294.43 million previously.
The ACE Market volume went down to 10.05 billion shares worth RM3.03 billion from 16.48 billion shares valued at RM4.70 billion the week earlier.
— Bernama
