KUALA LUMPUR: The renewed buying momentum that come onto Wall Street overnight could help the domestic market retrace some of the previous session’s losses, although investors are already looking ahead to upcoming corporate earnings over the coming two weeks.
A raft of earnings announcements are scheduled for release next week as Bursa Malaysia’s corporate results period shifts into full gear.
Meanwhile, Apex Securities Research said investors will be monitoring multiple economic data including UK’s 4Q23 GDP estimates, manufacturing and industrial production and US’s January retail sales.
“We maintain a preference for the energy sector as oil prices continue to rise despite the stubborn inflation, underscoring the persistent risk to crude supplies should geopolitical conflict in the Middle East escalate further.
“We also favour the plantation sector given than CPO price has been able to hold its ground around the RM3,800/mt-RM3,900/mt range but fresh catalyst is needed for further upside to occur,” it said in a note.
At 9am, the benchmark FBM KLCI opened a marginal 0.04 points lower at 1,529.29 as investors digested recent developments.
The blue chips were slow getting off the starting line with leading movers including Tenaga Nasional up four sen to RM11.10, Maybank rising five sen to RM9.45 and Press Metal adding two sen to RM4.62.
Decliners included Telekom down three sen to RM5.85, IOI shedding two sen to RM4 and Axiata dropping two sen to RM2.75.
Of actives, TWL rose 0.5 sen to four sen, Hong Seng was unchanged at two sen and Wentel gained 1.5 sen to 31 sen.