Regional Uncertainties And Inflationary Fears Dampens Investor Sentiment
Heightened Regional fears, concerns of rising inflation, and the FOMC meeting next week brought Malaysian shares to end lower on Friday.
The Department of Statistics Malaysia (DOSM) said in a release today that food Inflation continues to contribute to the rise in national inflation.
National inflation in December 2021 increased 3.2 per cent to 124.5 as against 120.6 in the same month of the preceding year due to the base effect last year.
A dealer in a bank-based broking house said that investors continue to tread cautiously on the back of regional uncertainties and heightened fears of interest rate hikes.
Another Dealer said that the KLCI’s downside move continued as expected as the decline is in line with the regional performance, tracking the pullback in the US stock indices.
He said that this was mainly due to concern over the faster rate hikes in the US and a potential earlier reduction of the US Federal Reserve balance sheet to combat the persistently high inflation. “The worry over the impact of a liquidity squeeze has led to the sell-down in US, which has spiraled over to the rest of the market,” he said
He said that investors remain cautious in the near term as seen by the broader market decline. I expect volatility to dominate the market until further clarity on the Fed’s monetary policy tightening path is seen.
Bursa Malaysia eased lower on Friday, the FTSE BM KLCI shed 0.69 points to 1,527.06
There were 334 gainers, 575 losers and 442 counters that remained unchanged. The total volume at the market was 2.6 billion shares valued at RM2.6 billion
The top Gainers : Complete (4.01+0.53 ); Woodlan (1.530+ 0.35 ) Bonia (1.42+0.20 ); DLady (32.38+0.20 ) and Ancom (3.40+ 0.17)
The top losers MPI (38.02- 2.00 ); Panamy (29.00-0.58 ); BAT (12.66-3.36 ); AEONCR (14.48-0.42) and SAM (S) (21.20- 0.36).