Trader’s Look at Market – “Malaysia Glove Stocks Defy Global Market Weakness” (4 Feb 2025)

Ken Low wrote a column · Feb 4 08:27

Global markets

$Dow Jones Industrial Average (.DJI.US)$ DJ -0.27%, $S&P 500 Index (.SPX.US)$ S&P500 -0.76%, $NASDAQ 100 Index (.NDX.US)$ Nasdaq -1.20%.

President Trump’s decision to pause tariffs on Mexico and Canada cool geopolitical tension that may cause global trade war. Mexico agreed to supply 10,000 troops to help the US against illegal immigration.

Market expects tariffs to push up inflation because domestic importers need to pay higher for import goods. Hence, the probability of more rates cut diminishes. That’s why equities underperformed especially interest rates sensitive tech stocks.

Earning season takes the centre of stage this week. About 120 index constituents S&P500 will report financial results, including $Alphabet-A (GOOGL.US)$ GOOGL and $Amazon (AMZN.US)$ AMZN.

Malaysia markets

Local Macro

MYR further depreciated amid selling pressure. $USD/MYR (USDMYR.FX)$ USDMYR closed higher at 4.4760 (+150 pips) and $SGD/MYR (SGDMYR.FX)$ SGDMYR rallied from the low of 3.24 before CNY to close at 3.29 yesterday.

Malaysia 10-year government bond settled slightly higher at 3.85% (+0.03).

KLCI Performance

$FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI Index (.KLSE.MY)$ KLCI closed slightly lower at 1,553.63 (-3.29 point) with much lower volume traded, about MYR 1.75 billion, showing lacklustre and lack of catalysts.

Malaysia equity flow (MYR million)

Trader’s Look at Market – “Malaysia Glove Stocks Defy Global Market Weakness” (4 Feb 2025)

Geopolitical tension and strong USD are not beneficial to domestic equities. We saw foreigners non-stop selling equities, yesterday at the pace of MYR 152 million. YTD outflow accumulated further to MYR 3.28 billion.

Sectoral performance (%)

Healthcare (+2.49%) became the champ overnight, thanks to $SUPERMX (7106.MY)$ SUPERMX (+14.02%), $TOPGLOV (7113.MY)$ TOPGLOV (+4.17%), $HARTA (5168.MY)$ HARTA (+6.04%) and $KOSSAN (7153.MY)$ KOSSAN (+6.25%).

Stocks on focus:

Bloomberg source: SUPERMX target price by analysts