Market Close KLCI volatile, falls 13 points to day’s low

Market Close KLCI volatile, falls 13 points to day’s low
Business & Markets 2013
Written by Shalini Kumar of theedgemalaysia.com
Friday, 15 March 2013 17:43


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KUALA LUMPUR (Mar 15): The FBM KLCI which vacillated between gains and losses, fell substantially at the eleventh hour to close at its day's low.

At 5pm, the KLCI fell 13.1 points or 0.8% to settle at 1,627.64 points. The index had risen as much as 1.41 points or 0.08% to an intraday high of 1,642.15 earlier.

Analysts said the last minute decline could be due to foreign investors selling banking shares. These included MALAYAN BANKING BHD [], PUBLIC BANK BHD [] and CIMB Group Holdings Bhd.

“This could be linked to foreign funds pulling out from the local market,” Interpacific Securities head of research, Pong Teng Siew told the theedgemalaysia.com.

“This is not surprising and has been a concern of mine for a while. We have seen such a large inflow of foreign funds into the market over the last two years, so it can lead to a very
destabilising outflow. Of course, this could tie in with election jitters,” Pong added.

Investors are waiting for the Malaysian Prime Minister to announce the dissolution of Parliament. The 13th general election must be held by end-April and many cautious and risk-averse investors have scaled down their holdings in the local market.

Across Bursa Malaysia, some 972.34 million shares worth some RM2.5 billion changed hands. There were 313 gainers versus 355 decliners.

The top gainer was Carlsberg Brewery Bhd while British American Tobacco was the leading decliner. Most active was SANICHI TECHNOLOGY [] BHD [].

The outcome of the FTSE Emerging Index annual review announced today will also be closely watched. This is because Bursa Malaysia is among the list of global exchanges using FTSE as a benchmark to calculate their indices.

In a statement today, FTSE Group said new companies to join the index include eight Indian entities. They are Glaxosmithkline Consumer Healthcare, Godrej Consumer Products, Indusind Bank, NMDC, Shree Cement, United Breweries, Wockhardt and Yes Bank.

As at February 28, 2013, the FTSE Emerging Index has 798 constituents, of which 39 are Malaysian companies. This gives the country a weightage of 4.6% in the index then.

Across Asia today, Japan’s Nikkei 225 rose 1.45%, Australia’s S&P/ASX200 climbed 1.75% while South Korea's Kospi fell 0.78%. Within China, Hong Kong's Hang Seng was down 0.38% while the Shanghai Composite rose 0.36%.

Reuters reported that Asian shares rebounded from three days of losses on Friday as new U.S. data suggested a steady recovery in the world's largest economy, bolstering investors' risk appetite while underpinning the dollar against the yen.

The MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan rose 0.4 percent, after falling earlier in the week as investors took profits from regional rallies that took some indexes to record peaks or multi-year highs.