Market pauses for a breather after five days of advance

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KUALA LUMPUR: After five straight sessions of gains, the domestic market could be due for a breather despite expectations that the ongoing recovery trend will continue amid an uptick of investor sentiment.

In Malaysia, the high vaccination rate and reopening of intrastate borders have shored up confidence that the country is poised to enter an endemic phase and take another step towards returning to normalcy.

Given a tumultuous period for equities in the global markets, investors have turned to emerging markets playing catch-up on the Covid recovery scene.

“Despite the selling pressure on Wall Street, we expect the foreign funds that have continuously bought into local equities, coupled with the firmer commodity prices in crude oil and crude palm oil, to provide a healthy sentiment to the local exchange over the near term,” said Malacca Securities Research.

In the previous session, foreign funds once again showed their optimism on Bursa Malaysia with net buying of RM131.3mil worth of shares.

At 9.05am, the FBM KLCI was down 6.28 points to 1,564.54, as investors cashed in on the recent rally.

The bank and plantation sectors, which have led the advance over recent days on the back of strong commodity prices and recovery prospects, were seen backing away from recent highs.

Nevertheless, the declines remained slight as Hong Leong Bank dropped six sen to RM18.54 and Public Bank shed one sen to RM4.10. Maybank was up rtwo sen to RM8.18 while CIMB added one sne to RM5.01.

In plantations, SIme Darby Plantataion fell four sen to RM4.23, IOI slid two sen to RM4.05 and Kuala Lumpur Kepong was flat at RM22.70.

Energy counters however remained buoyant as the price of Brent crude closed above the US$83 a barrel price overnight.

The Bursa Malaysia Energy stayed relatively unchanged following yesterday’s 6.5% jump, but remained firm given the commodity uptrend..

Among the leading blue-chips, Petronas Chemicals rose three sen to RM8.72.

On the broader market, the top actives were BAT up 24 sen to RM14.22, SJB rising 16 sen to RM2.93 and Alcom gaining 12.5 sen to RM1.09.



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