KUALA LUMPUR: Following the negative performance of the previous week, the pullback on the domestic market is expected to pick up steam amid an absence of fresh positive catalysts, says Apex Securities Research.
"Economically, investors should closely watch Malaysia’s inflation rate and US consumer expenditures and sentiment this week," said the research firm in its outlook.
In the meantime, it said investors should accumulate blue-chip stocks wiht sound fundamentals as the broader market takes a larger hit.
By sector, Apex said it is positive on the utilities sectors, driven by the increasing demand for electricity due to the development of data centres in the country.
Conversely, investors may want to avoid oil and gas companies due to the recent dip in oil prices, it said.
Malacca Securities Research struck a more optimistic tone as it expects the stock market will positive with the emergence of bargain-hunting activities following the end of FTSE rebalancing activities.
"We believe the overall sentiment will turn positive with the help in the
Technology sector on the back of rising demand from the data center, AI and cloud services catalysts.
"Meanwhile, we like the EMS players following a good set of results from VS and SKPRES last month," it said in a note.
It added that it expects healthy earnings to be recorded in the shipping and logistics sector following the fare hike since the Red Sea incident.
At the opening bell, the FBM KLCI was down 0.5 points to 1,589.87, extending its fall below the 50-day simple moving average to indicate growing bearish sentiment.
Tenaga Nasional was the leading laggard on the index, falling 10 sne to RM13.62 while Maybank slipped two sen to RM9.74 and Genting Malaysia shed two sen to RM2.58.
On the broader market, MPI lost 32 sen to RM38.90, Dutch Lady
slid 22 sen to RM36.10 and Ajinomoto fell 12 sen to RM15.30.
Top actives were Ingenieur rising 0.5 sen to seven sen, GDB gaining 5.5 sen ot 38.5 sen and JCY shedding three sen to 81.5 sen.
