KUALA LUMPUR - Bursa Malaysia is expected to trade cautiously next week, with the Composite Index set to remain choppy due to the ongoing assessment of the Omicron impact, a dealer said.
Bank Islam Malaysia Bhd chief economist Mohd Afzanizam Abdul Rashid said from the technical indicators, the index appears to be in the neutral region.
"As some of the traders are possibly away for year-end leave, the index is expected to be in the range-bound trade of 1,560.0 to 1,570.0 points next week,” he told Bernama.
He also noted that the benchmark index was volatile on Friday, tracking the performance of global markets.
Rakuten Trade Sdn Bhd vice-president of equity research Thong Pak Leng said the firm expects bargain-hunting activity to continue.
"We anticipate the index to trend within the 1,565 to 1,575 range for the next week. As for 2022, we are cautiously optimistic about the local equity market.
"We expect local institutional investors to return given the cheap valuations on the local market,” he said.
On a Friday-to-Friday basis, the FBM KLCI soared 51.08 points to end the week at 1,567.53 from 1,516.45 previously.
On the index board, the FBM Emas Index surged 313.8 points to 11,308.79, the FBMT100 Index soared 313.42 points to 11,015.13, the FBM Emas Shariah Index advanced 460.24 points to 12,263.10, the FBM ACE rose 179.48 points to 6,419.60, and the FBM 70 added 206.54 points to 14,209.95.
Sector-wise, the Financial Services Index gained 143.02 points to 15,565.64, the Industrial Products and Services Index improved 5.17 points to 202.71, and the Healthcare Index climbed 137.57 points to 2,336.32.
The Energy Index added 19.55 points to 703.87, the Technology Index inched up 1.72 points to 96.61, and the Plantation Index gained 63.60 points to 6,552.11.
Weekly turnover slipped to 11.53 billion units valued at RM8.21 billion against 11.92 billion units valued at RM7.28 billion in the previous week.
The Main Market volume fell to 6.52 billion shares worth RM7.18 billion from 6.99 billion shares worth RM6.28 billion in the prior week.
Warrants volume declined to 776.02 million units valued at RM98.11 million versus 908.21 million units valued at RM124.28 million previously.
The ACE Market volume rose to 4.18 billion shares worth RM907.35 million from 3.71 billion shares worth RM871 million in the previous week.
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