Malaysian shares ended just up on Monday, unmoved by a sovereign ratings upgrade by Fitch, with trading focused on market debutants like Ekowood International. Ekowood, a maker of hardwood floors, rose as much as 62 percent over the initial public offer price on its first trading day. The stock ended 38 percent up at 1.45 ringgit on volume of 12 million shares.
Analysts reported little reaction to the Fitch upgrade, saying the move had been long anticipated.
The agency on Monday upgraded Malaysia's long-term foreign currency ratings to A- and long-term local currency ratings to A+, citing and improved political climate, robust international liquidity position and declining external debt profile.
Standard & Poor's has a long-term rating of A-minus for Malaysia while the other major international rating agency, Moody's Investors Service, rates Malaysia a notch below at Baa1, though it has put Malaysia on credit watch for a possible upgrade.
Analysts said investors were reluctant to commit given the holiday-shortened trading week.
"People are quite nervous about holding shares because of the long weekend. I don't think people will be buying shares tomorrow or Wednesday," said Heddy Humaizi Hussain, analyst at Mayban Securities.
Heddy pegged immediate support for the benchmark share index at 850-855 points and resistance at 878-880.
The stock market will be shut from Thursday through Tuesday to mark the Hindu Diwali and Muslim Eid-ul-Fitr festivals.
The key Kuala Lumpur Composite Index rose 0.16 percent to 872.89. It had earlier hit 869.28 points, its lowest in nearly a week.
Overall market volume was a modest 323 million shares worth 733 million ringgit ($193 million) as declining stocks beat gainers two to one.
Another new listing, precision plastics manufacturer LCTH Corp, fell as much as 12 percent to 95 cents from the initial public offer price of 1.08 ringgit.
However, it recovered to end 1.05 ringgit, still a 2.8 percent discount to its IPO price.
Top lender Malayan Banking fell nearly one percent to 11.10 ringgit ahead of the release of the firm's first quarter earnings announcement after trade on Monday.
Shares of oil services firm Petra Perdana fell on profit taking after it said it may get a big maintenance contract from Shell.
The stock, which had gained 7.0 percent on Friday, fell 7.8 percent to 4.50 ringgit.
Petra Perdana said after the market closed on Friday that it received a letter of intent from the Malaysian units of Shell for maintenance work worth 600 million ringgit at production platforms in the waters of Sarawak and Sabah states on Borneo island.
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