BELOW are excerpts of viewpoints from two selected research houses on what investors can expect in the day ahead:
Inter-Pacific Research
The key index stayed close to the 1,540 level at the start of the week as it looks to find some measure of stability after last Friday’s pullback.
However, the FBM KLCI ended the day with minimal gains and well below its intra-day high on late profit taking with foreign funds being the day’s big sellers.
The pullback among the lower liners was also sustained amid the increasingly mixed market environment with total losers still ahead of gainers. Volumes, however, were thinner with total transactions at 3.3 billion shares.
Market conditions are likely to stay mostly indifferent for the time being as it undergoes a consolidation spell for the YTD (year-to-date) gains to be digested.
As the same time, there are also fewer noteworthy leads now that the results reporting season has ended with mildly improved performances in the preceding quarter.
With conditions likely to stay tepid for now, the key index could also remain range-bound and likely to hover within a tight range between the 1,540 and 1,450 levels as it looks to build up a base.
Apart from the above levels, the other support and resistance levels are at 1,532 and 1,545 points respectively.
Malacca Securities Research
The FBM KLCI is trading within its sideways formation after the February earnings season.
Despite the pullback on the US stock markets, investors were still chasing after tech stocks amid the AI (artificial intelligence)-craze and with Super Micro Computer Inc (SMCI) being added to S&P500.
The latest segment that got a boost is the memory chipmakers where high bandwidth memory solutions will be used in the latest Nvidia’s AI chips. Given this scenario, the upward tone will persist within AI-related stocks for the near term.
On the commodity market, Brent crude traded sideways to slightly below the US$83/barrel level as OPEC and its allies agreed to extend voluntary production cuts until end-June while gold price has surged above the US$2,100 zone with the anticipation of interest rate cuts by the US Federal Reserve in 2H 2024.
The FBM KLCI ended marginally higher but still within the sideways consolidation phase. The technical readings on the key index were mixed with the MACD Histogram extending another negative bar while the RSI has declined below 70.
The resistance is envisaged around 1,545-1,555 while the support is set at 1,520-1,530. – March 5, 2024
