On the local bourse, investor interest was focused mainly on lower liner stocks, which dominated the most actives list. Market volume hit the highest level recorded so far this year at over 1.42 billion shares. KNM was, by far, the day’s most heavily traded stock. Other actives include Focus, Mulpha, UEM Land, Asia Bioenergy, Lion Diversified, MRCB, Talam and Scomi.The KL Composite Index advanced 12 points to close at 953.7 points. Gaining counters outnumbered losing ones by a ratio of three to one.
Investor confidence was bolstered by better than expected earnings results from Goldman Sachs. This comes hot on the heels of the strong results reported by Well Fargo & Co — and lifted expectations that the US financial sector is stabilising after falling off the cliff in 4Q08. The market will be closely monitoring results from Citigroup and Bank of America, scheduled to release their results later this week, for more evidence of improving outlook.
World stock markets have performed very strongly over the past few weeks on expectations that the global economy is close to a bottom. Growth in the first quarter will be bad across the board. But recent figures do indicate a slowing in the pace of deterioration.
Case in point, Singapore's gross domestic product (GDP) plunged an annualised rate of 19.7% in the first three months of 2009, the worst since the government began compiling comparable data in 1976. The economy is now estimated to shrink between 6% and 9%, worse than its previous forecast for a contraction of between 2% and 5%. But on a slightly more upbeat note, exports fell 17% in March — less than the 24% and 35% declines recorded in February and January, respectively.
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