KUALA LUMPUR: The volatility in the domestic market in the previous session could continue ahead of the much-anticipated US personal consumption expenditure (PCE) report, which will offer more clues as to the direction of US interest rates.
Apex Securities Research said it is expecting the downside to prevail as the PCE, the US Federal Reserve's preferred measure of inflation, is scheduled for release tonight.
"Still, we view the current pullback to be healthy which allows recent gains to be digested before fresh legs to take charge to resume for a more sustainable upward momentum," said the research firm in a note.
Rakuten Trade, meanwhile, said it believes the selling to be slightly overdone as investors locked in profits, especially for the utilities sector, following the recent strong performance.
"We reckon a swift rebound is required to maintain recent upbeat sentiment so as to carry the index further. Therefore, we expect the index to possibly hover within the 1,545-1,555 today," it said in its review.
Meanwhile, Bursa Malaysia has entered the final day of the corporate results period, which will offer investors leads on company performance.
At 9am, the benchmark FBM KLCI was up 2.03 points to 1,537.62 as it rebounded slightly from the previous session's sharp fall.
Bank shares were mostly up, with Maybank gaining two sen to RM9.53, AMMB rising one sen to RM4.34, RHB adding one sen to RM5.61 and Public Bank gaining one sen to RM4.44.
CIMB, whose results are due out today, slipped one sen to RM4.79.
PPB gained eight sen to RM15.40, IOI rose three sen to RM4.03 and PETRONAS Gas climbed four sen to RM18.06.
Among top actives, Hong Seng was flat at 1.5 sen, MYEG added three sen to 82 sen and Ekovest was down three sen to 44.5 sen.
