KUALA LUMPUR: Bursa Malaysia extended its downtrend to close lower at midday due to subdued buying interest, as investors await the first-quarter domestic product (GDP) announcement by Bank Negara Malaysia this Friday.
Analysts said trading activities had so far hovered within the glove companies due to the US raising tariffs on Chinese rubber medical and surgical gloves to 25 per cent from 7.5 per cent.
Over in the US, Wall Street managed to close broadly higher as US Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell commented that the next move is unlikely to be a rate hike.
This provided reassurance on the interest rate direction to the traders after digesting a hotter-than-expected product price index data.
At 12.30pm, the FBM KLCI gave up 0.02 per cent or 0.25 points to 1,605.63 from Tuesday's close of 1,605.88.
The barometer index opened 0.13 of-a-point easier at 1,605.75, and fluctuated between 1,604.90 and 1,607.64 throughout the session.
On the broader market, losers outpaced gainers 548 to 499, with 440 counters unchanged, 881 untraded, and 23 others suspended. Turnover amounted to 3.68 billion units worth RM2.57 billion.
Malacca Securities head of research Loui Low told Business Times as investors have adopted a wait-and-approach attitude for Bank Negara's GDP results which is expected to set the tone for the market.
"For the GDP results, I believe it should still be positive and that should be a good signal for overall investors to buy in," he added.
Malacca Securities said the FBMKLCI extended the rebound for the second day, while the FBM Small Cap charged strongly for the session.
"Overall, we opine that buying interest could sustain in the near term in the regional and local stocks markets.
"The recent uptrend has continued for the past month and we believe the reiteration of no rate hike from the Fed will boost the positive sentiment in the stock markets at least for the near term," it said in a note today.
Malacca Securities expects the local exchange to trade higher with the optimism revolving around the utilities sector.
This follows the increased demand from AI-related investments like data center, coupled with plans to craft Malaysia into a chip powerhouse in the Southeast Asia region, these will eventually benefit the technology sector.
"Meanwhile, we like other sectors within the construction, property, building materials and consumers on the back of local-driven catalysts such as NETR, NIMP and potential revival of KL-SG HSR," it added.
