Domestic political stability, external factors to continue support local market -- Bursa Malaysia

KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 29 (Bernama) -- Bursa Malaysia Bhd expects domestic political stability and the dovish stance of the US Federal Reserves (Fed) will continue to support the local market, chief executive officer Datuk Muhamad Umar Swift said.

He said that the market has responded positively to the appointment of Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim as the 10th Prime Minister of Malaysia following the 15th General Election (GE15) on Nov 19.

“We are now looking forward to the appointment of the cabinet members and everything that provides greater certainty will be welcomed by the market,” he told reporters after launching the Shares2share securities donation scheme here today.

Shares2share enables investors to donate their listed securities or proceeds from the sale of their listed securities towards charity through Yayasan Bursa Malaysia.

Muhamad Umar said the Fed’s dovish position was an exogenous factor that has been well accepted by the market and is concurrently driving growth and demand for riskier assets.

“Malaysian stocks are currently undervalued and we foresee that there is a buying opportunity and we are looking forward to see continued support from foreign investors last week. There have been strong investors last week and continued interest,” he added.

The benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI Index rallied four per cent to close at 1,501.88 points on Thursday last week, its best day since March 2020, but at the lunch break today, the index stood at 1,471.16 points.

On Shares2share, Muhamad Umar said the scheme offered two share donation methods, namely donation of shares without a tax receipt and donation of sale proceeds with tax receipt, which allowed the investor donor to receive a tax deduction.

“Please note that to receive a tax receipt, you need to be a client of one of the 15 participating organisations partnering with Yayasan Bursa Malaysia in Shares2share.

“The 15 participating organisations collaborating with us on Shares2share have agreed to waive their brokerage fees and their portion of the CDS transfer fee,” he said.

He said the exchange would, likewise, be waiving the 0.03 per cent clearing fee as well as the Central Depository System (CDS) transfer fee.

He added that all these waivers would allow Yayasan Bursa Malaysia to extract as much value as possible from the donated shares.

Shares2share enables investors to donate their listed securities or proceeds from the sale of their listed securities towards charity through Yayasan Bursa Malaysia.

-- BERNAMA