FKLI Related News

Global equity markets fell and the euro slumped to a two-month low on Friday as weak economic data from Europe and China weighed on prices, but Wall Street stocks rebounded on news of surprisingly strong U.S. manufacturing and consumer sentiment. Commodities tumbled on Friday, with oil entering negative territory for the year and copper hitting a three-month low, after U.S. budget cuts and a surging dollar triggered worries about raw materials demand.

Democrats and Republicans are in a standoff over how to replace the cuts, known as sequestration, totaling $1.2 trillion over nine years. Of that total, $85 billion would occur in the remaining seven months of this fiscal year. President Barack Obama said the automatic spending cuts set to kick in today will be a “slow grind” on the economy and that it may take weeks to win over enough lawmakers from both parties to reach a deal on a replacement deficit-cutting plan.

Consumer spending in the U.S. rose in January even as incomes dropped by the most in 20 years, showing households were weathering the payroll-tax increase by socking away less money in the bank. Outside the U.S., data showed China’s manufacturing slowed for a second month while factory output in the euro area contracted for the 19th straight month.

Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago President Charles Evans said the Fed should press on with $85 billion in monthly bond buying, warning that a premature withdrawal of stimulus risks hobbling the recovery. “We need to be careful not to undermine our own policies and remove accommodation prematurely, as the Japanese did,” Evans said yesterday in a speech in Des Moines, Iowa.]

The S&P 500, which is trading at about 3 percent below its record, has gained 6.5 percent this year as lawmakers agreed on a compromise on taxes and amid better-than-estimated earnings. The benchmark index rose 1.1 percent in February, capping a four-month rally, the longest stretch since September. The Dow is 0.5 percent from its record high reached in October 2007.

Stocks on Bursa Malaysia ended mixed last Friday in line with the sentiment on regional markets and in the face of China’s weak manufacturing data. FKLI spot month contract opened higher this morning at 1,636 but dropped to a low of 1,616 by 10.30 am. 

Today’s Support and Resistance for March contract is located 

around 1,610 and 1,640 respectively.