Little Movement Seen For Malaysia Stock Market

(RTTNews) - The Malaysia stock market has finished higher in two of three trading days since the end of the two-day slide in which it had slipped almost 7 point or 0.5 percent. The Kuala Lumpur Composite Index now sits just above the 1,620-point plateau and it's expected to remain in that neighborhood again on Tuesday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets is murky, with technology stocks expected to provide a slight bump. The European and U.S. markets were mixed and little changed and the Asian bourses figure to follow suit.

The KLCI finished modestly higher on Monday following gains from the financial shares and plantations, while the telecoms and industrials were mixed.

For the day, the index added 13.27 points or 0.82 percent to finish at the daily high of 1,622.42 after trading as low as 1,608.85. Among the actives, 99 Speed Mart Retail dropped 0.96 percent, while AMMB Holdings jumped 1.58 percent, Axiata spiked 1.99 percent, Celcomdigi vaulted 1.39 percent, CIMB Group rallied 1.64 percent, Gamuda advanced 1.19 percent, IHH Healthcare improved 1.21 percent, IOI Corporation climbed 1.24 percent, Kuala Lumpur Kepong expanded 1.37 percent, Maxis soared 2.37 percent, Maybank collected 0.81 percent, MISC stumbled 1.80 percent, MRDIY surged 3.12 percent, Nestle Malaysia perked 0.18 percent, Petronas Chemicals rose 0.77 percent, Petronas Dagangan sank 0.71 percent, Petronas Gas dipped 0.11 percent, PPB Group strengthened 1.44 percent, Press Metal and Public Bank both gathered 0.47 percent, QL Resources increased 1.20 percent, RHB Bank added 1.03 percent, Sime Darby gained 0.98 percent, SD Guthrie picked up 1.33 percent, Sunway accelerated 1.66 percent, Tenaga Nasional was up 0.45 percent, YTL Corporation tumbled 1.15 percent, YTL Power shed 0.50 percent and Telekom Malaysia was unchanged.

The Dow dropped 226.19 points or 0.48 percent to finish at 47,336.68, while the NASDAQ climbed 109.77 points or 0.46 percent to close at 23,834.72 and the S&P 500 rose 11.77 points or 0.17 percent to end at 6,851.97.

The gain by the tech-heavy NASDAQ reflected a sharp increase by shares of Amazon (AMZN) after it announced a $38 billion agreement with OpenAI. Market leader Nvidia (NVDA) also rallied after software giant Microsoft (MSFT) revealed it has secured export licenses to ship Nvidia chips to the United Arab Emirates.

On the other hand, shares of Merck (MRK) weighed on the Dow, as did Nike (NKE), 3M (MMM) and Chevron (CVX).

In U.S. economic news, the Institute for Supply Management said manufacturing activity unexpectedly contracted at a slightly faster rate in October.

Crude oil prices edged slightly higher on Monday after OPEC agreed to halt production hikes for the first quarter of 2026. West Texas Intermediate crude for December delivery was up $0.07 or 0.11 percent at $61.05 per barrel.