Market Open KLCI starts Q32013 on weaker tone

Market Open KLCI starts Q32013 on weaker tone
Business & Markets 2013
Written by Surin Murugiah of theedgemalaysia.com
Monday, 01 July 2013 09:15

KUALA LUMPUR (July 1): The FBM KLCI got off to a less than enthusiastic start on the first trading day of the third quarter of 2013 and fell in early trade.

At 9.10am, the FBM KLCI fell 1.84 points to 1,771.10.

Gainers led losers by 109 to 77, while 130 counters traded unchanged. Volume was 70.61 million shares valued at RM34.86 million.

Among the early losers were United PLANTATION []s, KPH Helathcare, Timecom, Affin, Cahya Mata Sarawak, Naim, Gas Malaysia, Petronas Chemicals and Hwa Tai.

Post-window dressing effects may result in the Malaysian bourse softening today as we enter the third quarter of the year, according to Hwang DBS Vickers Research.

In a report Monday, the research nevertheless said the benchmark FBM KLCI – which had jumped 44.9-point or 2.6% over the last three days – could consolidate its recent gains by hovering above the immediate support line of 1,750 ahead.

It said this followed a mixed performance on Wall Street last Friday.

Key US equity indices ended between flat and down 0.8% amid hopes that the Federal Reserve would not wind down its quantitative easing program anytime soon, it said.

Meanwhile, Asian stocks got off to an uninspired start on Monday, while the U.S. dollar held firm at one-month highs after an influential Federal Reserve official suggested September could be the beginning of the end of easy money from the central bank, according to Reuters.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan fell 0.3 percent, having last week posted a 2.8 percent rally, its biggest weekly gain since September 2012. The index, though, ended the first half of the year down 7.3 percent, it said.