Little Movement Seen For Malaysia Stock Market

(RTTNews) - The Malaysia stock market on Friday wrote a finish to the two-day slide in which it had slipped more than 10 points or 0.6 percent. The Kuala Lumpur Composite Index now sits just beneath the 1,550-point plateau and it's likely to remain in that neighborhood again on Monday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets is cautiously optimistic on optimism over earnings, although profit taking may take hold later in the day. The European and U.S. markets saw mostly modest gains and the Asian bourses figure to follow that lead.

The KLCI finished slightly higher on Friday following gains from the financials, weakness from the plantations and a mixed picture from the telecoms.

For the day, the index perked 3.62 points or 0.23 percent to finish at 1,549.11 after trading between 1,544.18 and 1,551.15.

Among the actives, YTL Corporation skyrocketed 14.88 percent, while YTL Power surged 6.35 percent, Genting plummeted 2.41 percent, Petronas Chemicals plunged 2.11 percent, Kuala Lumpur Kepong tumbled 1.66 percent, Sime Darby Plantations retreated 1.56 percent, Sime Darby jumped 1.53 percent, IOI Corporation slumped 0.99 percent, Press Metal skidded 0.85 percent, Maxis dropped 0.79 percent, QL Resources sank 0.68 percent, MISC shed 0.66 percent, Mr. DYI advanced 0.66 percent, Hong Leong Bank collected 0.62 percent, Tenaga Nasional added 0.53 percent, IHH Healthcare lost 0.49 percent, Hong Leong Financial Group gained 0.48 percent, AMMB Holdings fell 0.46 percent, Petronas Gas rose 0.44 percent, Axiata improved 0.36 percent, CIMB Group increased 0.31 percent, Celcomdigi gathered 0.23 percent, RHB Bank perked 0.18 percent, Maybank was up 0.11 percent and Petronas Dagangan, PPB Group, Public Bank, Telekom Malaysia and Genting Malaysia were unchanged.

The lead from Wall Street is uninspired as the major averages opened solidly higher on Friday but faded as the day progressed, with the NASDAQ finishing in the red.

The Dow added 62.43 points or 0.16 percent to finish at 39,131.53, while the NASDAQ sank 44.78 points or 0.28 percent to close at 15,996.82 and the S&P 500 rose 1.77 points or 0.03 percent to end at 5,088.80.

For the holiday-shortened week, the S&P 500 surged 1.7 percent, the NASDAQ jumped 1.4 percent and the Dow advanced 1.3 percent.

The early upward move reflected an extension of the rally seen in during Thursday's session, which came on the heels of upbeat earnings news from AI darling Nvidia (NVDA).

Buying interest waned shortly after the start of trading, however, as traders took a breather following Thursday's surge.

Crude oil futures settled sharply lower on Friday as concerns about the outlook for demand and the recent data showing a jump in U.S. crude inventories weighed on prices. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for April dropped $2.12 or 2.65 percent at $76.49 a barrel.