FBM KLCI Ends Lacklustre Day 0.3% Lower

Investors returned from the one-day Merdeka holiday to lacklustre trading on the local bourse on Tuesday, Sept 1.

Regional markets had fallen sharply on Monday, when Bursa Malaysia was closed, triggered by a plunge in China’s stock market. Thus, while most regional markets traded flat to slightly higher on Tuesday, shares on the local bourse played “catch-up” with the rest of its peers.

Fortunately though, the extent of falls here was relatively small, but the market saw one of its slowest trading days in recent months.

The FBM KLCI closed 2.99 points lower at 1,171.3. Losers beat gainers by a 2.6-to-1 ratio on very thin volume of 498 million shares.

Actively traded stocks include KNM, Multi-Sports, Bumiputra-Commerce, TM, Genting and AMMB. Major gainers include Bumiputra-Commerce, Tanjong plc and Amway. Losers include BAT, Bursa and Parkson.

Volatility in the Chinese stock market has been a major factor influencing Asian bourses in recent weeks. Investors are fearful of fresh credit tightening measures to cool an overheating economy and curb the sharp growth in property and stock prices.

The Shanghai Composite Index fell 2.9% last Friday, followed by a 6.7% plunge on Monday. It recovered some 0.6% on Tuesday, due to positive Chinese manufacturing data. In Aug 2009, China’s manufacturing grew the fastest in 16 months.

China’s stimulus packages and aggressive bank lending has boosted growth and asset prices this year. This in turn, provided some resilience to Asia in 1H09, when the US, Europe and Japan were mired in deep recession. But equally though, the rest of the world is also starting to recover from recession conditions, albeit slowly, but investors are fearful of pricking China’s bubble.

The volatility in China will continue to keep investors at bay. Meanwhile, investors are also bracing for more volatility on Wall Street with a barrage of economic data due this week, the most important of which will be the August unemployment report, due on Friday.