Malaysia Shares Tipped To Open To The Upside

(RTTNews) - The Malaysia stock market on Friday ended the three-day losing streak in which it had fallen more than 15 points or 0.9 percent. The Kuala Lumpur Composite Index now sits just beneath the 1,590-point plateau and it may up steam on Monday.

The global forecast is positive, supported by increasing oil prices. The European and U.S. markets were up on Friday and the Asian markets are expected to open in similar fashion on Monday.

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

For the day, the index perked 1.10 points or 0.07 percent to finish at 1,589.78 after trading between 1,587.74 and 1,593.85.

Among the actives, Celcomdigi and IHH Healthcare both rose 0.28 percent, while CIMB Group perked 0.12 percent, Genting gathered 0.27 percent, Genting Malaysia slumped 0.93 percent, IOI Corporation and Sime Darby both declined 1.30 percent, Kuala Lumpur Kepong tumbled 2.28 percent, Maxis retreated 1.67 percent, MISC improved 0.26 percent, MRDIY plummeted 3.14 percent, Nestle Malaysia fell 0.31 percent, Petronas Chemicals surged 1.86 percent, PPB Group climbed 0.89 percent, Press Metal advanced 0.86 percent, Public Bank sank 0.45 percent, QL Resources soared 1.68 percent, RHB Bank collected 0.15 percent, SD Guthrie rallied 1.25 percent, Sunway gained 0.40 percent, Telekom Malaysia added 0.63 percent, Tenaga Nasional spiked 1.45 percent, YTL Corporation plunged 3.28 percent, YTL Power tanked 2.68 percent and Axiata and Maybank were unchanged.

The lead from Wall Street is upbeat as the major averages opened higher on Friday and mostly stayed that way, ending in the green.

The Dow surged 426.16 points or 0.97 percent to finish at a record 44,296.51, while the NASDAQ added 31.23 points or 0.16 percent to close at 19.003.65 and the S&P 500 gained 20.63 points or 0.35 percent to end at 5,969.34.

For the week, the Dow surged 2.0 percent, while the NASDAQ and the S&P 500 both shot up by 1.7 percent.

The advance by the markets came despite a pullback by shares of Nvidia (NVDA), as the AI darling tumbled by 3.2 percent despite having reporting better than expected third quarter earnings and revenues.

In U.S. economic news, revised data released by the University of Michigan showed consumer sentiment in the U.S. improved less than expected in November - although the index is still at its highest level since April.

Oil prices climbed higher on Friday amid rising concerns about Russia/Ukraine conflict. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for January closed up $1.14 or 1.6 percent at $71.24 a barrel. WTI crude futures gained 6.5 percent in the week.