KUALA LUMPUR: Bursa Malaysia is expected to stay steady next week, supported by attractive valuations, strengthened corporate earnings, and improving economic conditions.
"We believe in the attractiveness of Malaysian equities' valuation, therefore, we expect the buying momentum to continue next week," Rakuten Trade Sdn Bhd equity research vice-president Thong Pak Leng told Bernama.
Additionally, he said the increasing daily trading volume suggests an upswing in overall sentiment.
The local benchmark index also rebounded and tested breaking above the 20-day Exponential Moving Average (EMA) on Friday.
Despite the FBM KLCI experiencing a slight rebound, and both the 20-day and 50-day EMAs are showing signs of improvement, which indicated a potential shift to a positive trend in the upcoming sessions, Thong still expected choppy market conditions ahead.
"We expect consolidation to persist, with the benchmark fluctuating around the 20-day EMA. If residual selling pressure persists, there may be a retest of the 1,508-1,520 levels.
"Therefore, we anticipate the index to trade within the range of 1,540– 1,570 next week, with immediate support at 1,520 followed by 1,508 and resistance at 1,557 followed by 1,575," he said.
On a Friday-to-Friday basis, the FBM KLCI added 12.97 points to 1,552.83 from last week's 1,539.86.
On the index board, the FBM Emas Index advanced 119.61 points to 11,543.59, the FBMT 100 Index jumped 117.25 points to 11,205.30, the FBM 70 Index surged 261.26 points to 15,664.64, the FBM Emas Shariah Index gained 167.62 points to 11,591.60, and the FBM ACE Index improved 20.01 points to 4,709.06.
Sector-wise, the Financial Services Index declined 92.11 points to 17,276.63, the Energy Index advanced 12.43 points to 916.0, the Industrial Products and Services Index earned 2.73 points to 176.89, and the Plantation Index slipped 23.98 points to 7,292.35.
Weekly turnover widened to 20.96 billion units worth RM15.95 billion from 17.37 billion units worth RM13.36 billion in the preceding week.
The Main Market volume improved to 13.79 billion shares worth RM14.54 billion from 9.26 billion shares worth RM11.97 billion a week ago.
Warrants turnover decreased to 4.30 billion units valued at RM534.73 million versus 5.14 billion units valued at RM681.73 million last week.
The ACE Market volume eased to 2.79 billion shares worth RM869.22 million from 2.88 billion shares worth RM701.42 million previously.