KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysian's benchmark FBM KLCI opened little changed from the previous day's closing price as the market resumed a sideways price movement amid fresh concerns over inflation risk and heightened uncertainties in the global investment environment.
Apex Research said the index was expected to maintained the sideways trend as inflation data was released across the region, although the lower liners are likely to experience increased volatility due to the escalating tensions between the US and China.
"Market pressure began to mount overnight after Putin warned the US that the threshold for using nuclear weapons had been lowered, a shift in stance following Biden’s approval for Ukraine to use US weapons to strike within Russia," said the research firm.
Apex, however, noted that investors could take the opportunity to lock in recent gains from the plantations sector following the revision of export tax from 8% to 10% for crude palm oil priced above RM4,050 yesterday.
Additionally, there could be buying interest in the technology sectors following gains in the Nasdaq overnight, ahead of the release of Nvidia's third-quarter results tonight.
At 9am, the FBM KLCI was up 0.54 points to 1,602.88, with investors awaiting a raft of corporate results that scheduled to be released over the coming days.
Nestle shot up 92 sen to RM99.86 in a strong rebound to lead the market higher while Telekom Malaysia rose nine sen to RM6.49 and PPB added eight sen to RM14.08.
Dialog also gained nine sen to RM2.08 following its result announcement yesterday.
Among actives, Cape EMS shed two sen to 36.5 sen, Life Water lost one sen to 93 sen and TCS was flat at 15 sen.
