The Malaysian stock market has seen consecutive growth, recording an increase of over eight points, or 0.5 percent, in two sessions. The Kuala Lumpur Composite Index is approaching the 1,540-point mark, although it might face some challenges at the start of the week.
Experts believe that the global outlook for Asian markets is somewhat weak, with energy and technology stocks potentially feeling the brunt. European markets have displayed mixed performance with no significant changes, and with US markets in decline, the Asian markets are expected to follow a similar trend.
On Friday, the KLCI ended on a high note due to gains from plantation stocks and inconsistent performances from telecom and financial shares. The Index rose by 4.03 points or 0.26 percent, closing at 1,539.86.
Notable market players included AMMB Holdings with a surge of 4.56 percent, and Axiata increased by 1.49 percent. In contrast, firms like Celcomdigi saw a decline of 1.40 percent. CIMB Group and Genting witnessed growth with 1.99 and 1.23 percent, respectively. On the downside, Petronas Chemicals dropped by 1.87 percent, while YTL Corporation and YTL Power saw significant drops of 3.47 percent and 4.18 percent, respectively.
Negative signals from Wall Street suggest major averages opening high on Friday but soon dipped into the red and closed lower. The Dow fell by 68.71 points or 0.18 percent, NASDAQ tumbled by 188.29 points or 1.16 percent, and the S&P 500 sank by 33.67 points or 0.65 percent by closing time.
The release of Labor Department's monthly jobs report led to an optimistic outlook on interest rates. Although job growth in February was stronger than anticipated, the report also highlighted considerable revisions in job growth for the past two months.
Despite the early strength shown on Wall Street, traders seemed hesitant to buy stocks ahead of significant inflation data to be released this week, which could considerably impact rate outlooks.
Oil prices dropped on Friday due to insecure demand predictions, particularly from China, following a decrease in the country's oil import during the year's initial two months. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for April dropped by $0.92 or 1.2 percent to $78.01 a barrel, marking a weekly decline of 2.5 percent.
