KUALA LUMPUR, April 20 (Bernama) — The Kuala Lumpur Composite Index (KLCI) futures contracts on Bursa Malaysia Derivatives were lower in early session today, tracking the losses made on the cash market, dealers said.

At 10.10am, the KLCI futures for April 2009 contract fell 3.50 points to 954 and May 2009 lost 5.50 points to 951.

The June 2009 and September 2009 contracts declined 4.50 points each to 946.5 and 933.5, respectively.

A total of 1,571 lots changed hands this morning while open interest stood at 20,252 contracts.

On the cash market, the underlying KLCI lost 7.19 points to 957.98 as at 10.10am today.

– BERNAMA

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It will adopt FTSE global index standard to enhance the quality of the market.

IN these turbulent times, all financial markets are slogging to be more appealing, with the hope of taking full advantage once investor confidence returns and serious dough pours in. Hence, to continue being defensive and to play catch up with regional peers is a losing strategy.
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KUALA LUMPUR: Steady buying interest on Tenaga Nasional Bhd and select banking stocks kept the KL Composite Index inside positive territory at the midday break, as the market heads into its six consecutive days of gains.

Elsewhere in Asia, shares were mixed after China said its economy grew at its slowest pace in the first quarter. In Hong Kong, stocks settled slightly higher at the lunch break, but shares traded in mainland China fell.

The KL Composite index was up 6.13 points, or 0.64% to 962.81. The index had earlier in the morning scaled to a new six months high of 969.93 points.

Market turnover continued to improve, with more than 1.3 billion shares valued about RM820mil changing hands. Advancing stocks outpaced decliners 350 to 247 with 210 counters flat.
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MALAYSIAN fund manager Public Mutual expects gains in Malaysian equities following the government’s massive pump-priming and the central bank furiously cutting interest rates to boost growth.

Public Mutual, the country’s largest private fund management firm by assets, sees buying opportunities in banks, consumer staples as well as cyclical stocks that tend to move up first when the economy recovers, said its CEO Yeoh Kim Hong.

“The local equity market is currently supported by below-trend valuations, easing inflationary pressures, expansionary fiscal and monetary policy,” said Yeoh, who helps manage RM23 billion (US$6.4 billion) at the firm.
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MALAYSIA’S benchmark Kuala Lumpur Composite Index, which rose past 920 to a three-month high yesterday, needs to stay above that level to sustain a week-long rally, according to RHB Research Institute Sdn Bhd.

The index faces a “strong test” at 920, which is a “significant technical hurdle as well as the support-turn-resistance Uptrend Line,” RHB Research said in a note today.

“A failure will surely trigger a sharper dip, hence ending the current upsurge.”

The Composite Index rose for a fifth day yesterday, climbing 1.9 per cent to close at 923.77, the highest level since January 7. It gained 6.3 per cent over the five-day rally, marking the longest winning streak since March 23. The measure fell 1 per cent to 915.12 as of 11:28 am local time.
“We maintain our positive medium-term view” on the stock index “as long as it continues to trade above the crucial congestion region of 880 to 890, with a relatively firm daily turnover of 500-600 million shares,” it said. - Bloomberg

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KUALA LUMPUR: Major Asian bourses were up at midday Friday on news that the global economy has sound prospect of recovery as the leaders of major economies agreed on the measures to fight the global recession.

However, the KLCI was marginally down following the release of the external trade data by the statistics department.

Exports for February 2009 fell 15.9% year-on-year, while imports was 27.3% lower. Total trade in February was 21% lower at RM67.2bil, with trade surplus of RM11.97bil.

Month-on-month, exports increased by 3.4%, while imports fell 8.4%.
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KUALA LUMPUR: Scomi Group and Equine Capital were among stocks that rose in morning trade Thursday while TNB and MISC were down.

In the region, major indices were in positive territory after a late rally on Wall Street following growth in durable-goods orders and new-home sales.

HwangDBS Vickers Research Sdn Bhd said in a report that the recovery momentum of the bourse could tail off due to thin trading activity and negative market breadth.

It said the KLCI might see sideways movement with a marginal negative bias today.

Details

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KUALA LUMPUR: The KLCI was higher at midday Wednesday with bluechip stocks supporting the gains.

However, according to Maybank Investment Bank Bhd chief chartist Lee Cheng Hooi, any sudden intra-day upward moves or gaps on the back of Wall Street’s overnight rise might be met by swift profit-taking.

“Any market rebound may be capped at the resistance areas of 841 and 857, while the weaker support areas are located at 824 and 838,” he said.

Lee said the KLCI remained benign as selling pressure by foreign investors would weigh the market down.

At lunchbreak, the KLCI was 0.97% higher at 850.03 while Singapore’s Straits Times Index rose 1.34% to 1,579.90.

Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 was down 0.47% to 7,911.56 and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index advanced 1.53% to 13,075.39.

Shanghai’s A share index added 0.45% to 2,228.21 while Seoul’s Kospi Index lost 0.11% to 1,162.61.

At Bursa Malaysia, 231 counters were up, 94 were down and 171 others were traded unchanged. There were 195.88 million shares done at a total value of RM243.63 million.

KNM gained 0.5 sen to 35 sen and SapuraCrest added 4.5 sen to 71.5 sen. TM International was down 2 sen to RM2.16 while TM gained 2 sen to RM3.52.

Among bank stocks, Maybank climbed 14 sen to RM4.16 and Public Bank rose 25 sen to RM7.60.

TNB was up 15 sen to RM6.10, Shell lost 10 sen to RM9.20 and Esso fell 7 sen to RM1.95. Bursa surged 24 sen to RM4.72 while Kassets-WA lost 15.5 sen to 43.5 sen.

Lion Diversified added 1 sen to 23.5 sen and Tanjong gained 20 sen to RM14.10.
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KUALA LUMPUR, March 18 (Bernama) — The Kuala Lumpur Composite Index (KLCI) may go down to 700 points in the second half of 2009 before staging a mini-rally by year-end, CIMB private banking co-head Alan Inn said today.

“The market always acts ahead of the real economy, so we hope the market will find the bottom and rally by year-end,” he told reporters on the sidelines of the CIMB Private Banking Investment Conference 2009 here.

“But from then on it will be a bit of bumpy ride. I am not expecting a bull run even next year,” he said.

The benchmark index ended the day 0.99 points higher at 841.87 after opening 5.07 points higher at 846.94.

Inn said it was not impossible for the local bourse to take a dip from the current level because the market volume has also fallen a great deal.

“But at the same time, the saving grace is that we have the government planning to buy up equities in the market,” he said.

However, if the global trend indicates another wave of selldown for whatever reason, Inn said it would be hard to fight it.

“Hopefully, it will not get below 700, although it is a remote chance at this point of time. The 700 plus level should be the bottom, and hopefully there won’t be more bad news from the United States,” he said.

According to Inn, the Malaysian equity market has not been as badly hit as some of its regional peers.

This was because the country is seen to be robust partly due its fundamentals, especially in terms of the banking system and the reserves which look comparatively better than others, and with the natural resources that helped bolster growth, he said.

Inn said the group was forecasting a contraction of 0.5 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) this year and a growth of 1.5 percent next year.

“Looking at the indications, the economy should find a bottom this year, with the fiscal stimulus kicking in and the interest rate having come off a great deal,” he said.

However, Inn said all the fiscal stimulus as well as borrowing and spending by governments worldwide would mean an increase in the debt level globally.

“What it means is that when the economy stabilises and growth gets back on track, governments have to perhaps start raising taxes around the world, to find revenue sources to repay the debts”, he said.

In addition, the stimulus injected will also lead to inflation due to excess liquidity in the market, Inn said.

“Central banks around the world will have to think about withdrawing those liquidity once growth is on track. Otherwise, we run the risk of having massive inflation that we have not seen before,” he said.

Inn said it would take a while before Malaysia goes back to the “good old days” of posting four to five percent growth and the country needed a new catalyst to bolster the economy.
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