Market Close KLCI drops 0.2% ahead of election

Market Close KLCI drops 0.2% ahead of election
Business & Markets 2013
Written by Shalini Kumar of theedgemalaysia.com
Friday, 22 March 2013 17:22


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KUALA LUMPUR (Mar 22): The FBM KLCI mirrored its performance last Friday by vacillating between gains and losses, only to end in the red, ahead of the coming election.

At the 5.00 pm market close, the benchmark index fell 3.86 points or 0.2% to settle at 1626.89 points. The index rose about 0.39% to an intra-day high of 1633.32 earlier.

According to Lee Cherng Wee, senior analyst at JF Apex Securities, the market will probably remain quite slacken until the general elections are called.

“Investors are remaining cautious. Our view is that the market will trend sideways with a negative bias, until the elections are called,” he said.

When asked if external factors played a role in the market’s performance, Lee said the election concerns probably had a bigger role to play than occurrences outside Malaysia.

“Generally, our market doesn’t get as affected by outside factors as much as some of the other regional markets,” he explained.

Investors are waiting for the Prime Minister to announce the dissolution of Parliament. Many expect him to make the announcement on Monday (March 25).

The 13th general election must be held by end-April, and many cautious and risk-averse investors have pared down their holdings in the local market.

Across Bursa Malaysia, some 1.03 billion shares worth some RM1.7 billion changed hands. There were 259 gainers versus 413 decliners.

The top gainer was MAH SING GROUP BHD [] warrants while UMW HOLDINGS BHD [] was the leading decliner. The most active counter was TEBRAU TEGUH BHD [].

According to Reuters, Asian shares hovered near 2013 lows and gold stayed close to a one-month high on Friday as Cyprus scrambled to find a solution to its funding crisis and concern over the health of the euro zone mounted.

European markets were seen carrying over Asia's cautious tone, with financial spreadbetters predicting London's FTSE 100 , Paris's CAC-40 and Frankfurt's DAX to open down as much as 0.2%. U.S. stock futures were flat to point to a subdued Wall Street start.

The MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan inched down 0.3%, nearing the lowest level in three months struck earlier this week. The pan-Asian index was set for a weekly loss of nearly 1.7%.

Across Asia today, Japan’s Nikkei 225 tumbled 2.4%, Australia’s S&P ASX 200 rose 0.2%, while South Korea’s Kospi fell 0.1%. Within China, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng was down 0.5% while the Shanghai Composite rose 0.2%.