Malaysian share prices are expected to continue sliding amid a lack of leads, weak economic growth and higher oil prices, analysts said. "With the prevailing market weakness, it looks increasingly unlikely that the key index will be able to post a quick recovery from its downtrend," said Victor Wan, a senior analyst at Mercury Securities.
"The combination of a moderating economic growth, stubbornly high fuel prices, coupled with creeping inflationary pressures, has reversed the optimism over the ringgit's de-peg into one of cautiousness," he said.
"Consequently, the dour sentiments looks to sustain into the week and could well linger longer as the market is simply devoid of a strong positive catalyst to push it toward a sustainable recovery."
A local brokerage dealer said investors were staying away from the market due to expectations the economy might be slowing down as a result of sharply higher oil prices. Weak corporate results and a lower-than-expected second quarter gross domestic product growth of 4.1 percent announced Wednesday added to the negative sentiment, he said.
At the close on Friday, the ringgit was at 3.77 against the US dollar and at 4.6371 against the euro.
For the week just ended, the composite index dropped 7.16 points or 0.77 percent to 918.38.
Average daily volume was 369.596 million shares valued at 661.98 million ringgit (176 million dollars) compared to 344.62 million shares valued at 533.316 million ringgit in the previous week.
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