KUALA LUMPUR: Bursa Malaysia is expected to react negatively to Wall Street's sharp overnight response after the US released higher-than-expected inflation data, which could reduce the number of rate cuts planned by the Federal Reserve this year.
"In the wake of the negative news on Wall Street, we expect pessimism to permeate locally**," Apex Securities Research said in a note.
The research firm said it expects the KLCI index to ** as investors lock in recent gains, while the lower constituents may also face some weakness after a strong **.
Meanwhile, Malacca Securities Research is more optimistic about the domestic outlook, saying support is likely to remain in place in the short term thanks to several catalysts in the country.
Local trading sentiment should remain positive due to deal catalysts around the data center theme, large infrastructure projects and LSS5, which is about to open for tender.
The focus sectors will be construction, real estate, utilities and renewable energy," the agency said in the assessment report.
At 9 a.m., the benchmark FBM KLCI Index **358 o'clock, to 1527At 79 points, bank stocks led the decline.
Maybank** 4 percentage points to 9RM40, CIMB International**5 percentage points to 6RM29, Public Bank** 1 percentage point to 4RM39.
At the same time, Genting's share price was **2 percentage points to 4RM88, Genting Malaysia** 2 percentage points to 2RM84.
Among the active stocks, Bintai remained at 75 points unchanged, Vinda **05 o'clock to 125 points, Yonghe Real Estate**05 a.m. to 68 p.m.