KUALA LUMPUR: Bursa Malaysia is expected to maintain an upside bias as foreign investors make a comeback to local stocks amid renewed confidence in a lower global interest rate environment.
Malaysia’s key index started cautious on Friday, rising 0.15 points to 1,541.56, as investors digested a series of global central bank announcements made over the course of the week.
“With the key index attempting to find stability, we reckon upsides could persist in absence of major negative developments,” said Apex Securities Research in its morning note.
“The improved market sentiment may also present greater trading opportunities amongst the lower liners”.
Fresh on the ACE Market of Bursa Malaysia today is fertility centre operator Alpha IVF, which opened for trading at its initial public offering (IPO) price of 32 sen a share.
As at the time of writing, the stock topped the actives list with 74.2 million shares changing hands.
Meanwhile, plantations counter Kuala Lumpur Kepong stood out among the blue chips, rising 22 sen to RM22.52 to extend its rally for a third consecutive day on firmer crude palm oil prices.
Sunway Construction surged 21 sen to RM2.94 after it announced it had inked a RM747.8mil deal with a US-headquartered technology corporation for the construction of a data centre in Selangor.
Galvanising global stock markets this week, the US Federal Reserve announced it was staying put on a fund rate of 5.25-5.5% but on course to lowering the borrowing cost three times this year.
Foreign funds, which had been net sellers for seven days on Bursa Malaysia, turned net buyers on Thursday to the tune of RM287mil, according to Bursa Malaysia’s website, on a renewed appetite for riskier assets.
Overnight, the major Wall Street indices charted fresh records – by an advance of 0.2% to 0.7%.
Japan’s Nikkei index, on a tear at historical highs after having rallied over 20% so far this year, tacked on another 0.4% to 40,979 within the first hour of Friday trading.