CONTINUOUS selling pressure in the financial services counters dragged Bursa Malaysia to end at its intra-day low today amid cautious sentiment on the regional markets, dealers said.
At 5pm, the benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) dropped 14.49 points to end at 1,586.89 from Monday’s close of 1,601.38.
The index opened 3.03 points better at 1,593.19 and went to the highest level of 1,604.98 for the session, before ending at the lowest level for the day.
Market breadth was negative with decliners surpassing gainers 562 to 510, while 427 counters were unchanged, 719 untraded and six others suspended.
Turnover was higher at 4.91 billion units worth RM3.39 bil compared with 4.43 billion units worth RM3.67 bil on Monday.
ActivTrades trader Anderson Alves said Asian stocks traded mixed on Wednesday after a handover from Wall Street that was mired in month-end trade, where all major indices posted their seventh consecutive monthly gain for August.
“On the macro front, there was another blow for Asia-Pacific economies and global emerging markets as China’s August Caixin manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) came in at 49.2 versus expectations of 50.2.
“The mounting downward pressure on economic growth could create another wave of cautious positioning on risk assets, equities, forex and sovereign and high-yield bonds in the region. Markets are now positioning for the US employment data and PMIs this week,” he said in a note.
He said it was worth paying close attention to positioning ahead of Friday’s US Nonfarm Payroll readings as US Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell recently suggested that a “careful focus on incoming data” will be a helpful guide for monetary policy.
“Some traders have already started positioning for slightly hawkish data, which caused the US dollar to strengthen and US Treasury Curve to steepen after the month-end fixing,” he added.
Public Bank and Maybank were the top two losers for the benchmark index, contributing to a total of 5.64 points, losing 10 sen each to RM4.08 and RM8.30 respectively.
Among other heavyweights, Petronas Chemicals went down 1 sen to RM8.29, Tenaga Nasional fell 12 sen to RM10.34, IHH Healthcare declined 7.0 sen to RM6.33, CIMB slipped 2 sen to RM4.89 while Press Metal rose 12 sen to RM5.52.
Among the actives, KNM Group added 2.5 sen to 28 sen, Borneo Oil earned half-a-sen to 3.5 sen, Bintai Kinden improved 8.5 sen to 56.5 sen while Avillion slipped 2 sen to 12.5 sen. – Sept 1, 2021
