BELOW are excerpts of viewpoints from two selected research houses on what investors can expect in the day ahead:
Inter-Pacific Research
Selling dominated trading last Friday as the market was spooked by the escalating war in the Ukraine that caused widespread profit taking and selling.
Index heavyweights in the oil & gas (O&G) sector were among the main losers which was followed by plantations stocks as they retreat from their strong uptrend recently.
The broader market and lower liners also saw further weakness as the heightened conflict caused more players to exit the market and resulted in losing stocks still overwhelm gaining ones.
The near-term outlook remains feeble, affected by the ongoing uncertainties in Eastern Europe as well as the surge in commodity prices that is again stoking inflationary fears.
As a result, the fluidity will remain for now that could cause more market volatility. There could be sustained interest from foreign institutions but the fresh buying may become more selective after the recent strong upticks has left fewer compelling buying opportunities.
This could temper the key index’s attempts to stay above the psychological 1,600 level as selling may still dominate trades for the time being.
Below the 1,600 level, the support is at the 1,595 and 1,592 levels while the resistances are at 1,610 and 1,620 points respectively.
Malacca Securities Research
The local bourse traded in the negative territory on Friday as the FBM KLCI reversed into losses as geopolitical tension between Russia and Ukraine persisted.
We expect to see volatile trading movements on the local bourse at least for the near term given the on-going developments in the Russia and Ukraine region.
With the market pricing in the embargo risk on Russian oil, the Brent oil has gapped up this morning and traded towards the US$138/BARREL region while crude palm oil futures (FCPO) could follow suit by remaining firm above the RM6,000/metric tonne level.
The FBM KLCI pared gains from the previous sessions but remained supported above the critical 1,600 level.
Technical indicators, however, remained positive as the MACD Histogram has extended a positive bar while the RSI hovered above the 50 level.
The resistance is now pegged around 1,615 while the support is located at 1,600 followed by 1,575. – March 7, 2022
