KUALA LUMPUR: The domestic market started on a slide on the first trading day of October, dampening hopes that there will be some reprieve to the selling that had pushed the FBM KLCI lower by 7.8% in September.
At 9.05am, the benchmark FBM KLCI was down 3.7 points to 1,390,93 as the negative momentum on the market continued following Wall Street's sharp sell-off last Friday.
There were 223 negative stocks compared with 83 positive, suggesting overall market weakness. Trading volume was 95.46 million shares valued at RM40.96mil.
According to Kenanga Research, the statistics indicate the odds are there could be some positive retracement this month given the bellwether recording positive return in October in seven of the 10 years with an average monthly return of 0.4% since 2012.
It also noted that investors will be focused on the tabling of Budget 2023, which will take place on Friday afternoon.
"Against a jittery market backdrop, the underlying sentiment will remain wobbly ahead, carrying over from last week’s shaky performance," said Kenanga in its weekly technical report.
"The benchmark FBMKLCI – which has already lost 133.2 points or 8.7% from a recent top of 1,528 in
mid-August to break below the 1,400-psychological mark – could continue its negative bias in view of the declining momentum signal and prevailing Parabolic SAR downtrend even as the bellwether flirts around our immediate support threshold of 1,395 (which coincides with the 61.8% Fibonacci retracement level as measured from its March 2020’s trough to the December 2020 top).
"If that is broken on a weekly closing basis, an extended backslide may ensue with the next support line seen at 1,355. Our first resistance barrier remains at 1,440," it added.
On the blue-chip index, there was some negative movement in the bank counters, led by Maybank down one sen to RM8.57, Public Bank falling one sen to RM4.22, CIMB sliding one sen to RM5.12 and Hong Leong Bank dropping 10 sne to RM20.40.
Press Metal slid five sen to RM3.99 while going the other direction, Axiata rose three sen to RM2.64, and MISC added four sen to RM6.80.
Top actives on the market were PT Resources up 0.5 sen to 46.5 sen, SNS gaining 0.5 sen to 28 sen and XOX falling 0.5 sen to 1.5 sen.
Top Glove remained heavily traded, losing 1.5 sen to 61 sen.