KUALA LUMPUR (Sept 17): The FBM KLCI pared some of its loss at mid-morning on Wednesday, but remained in negative territory as sentiment stayed tepid at the local market.

At 10am, the FBM KLCI was down 4.19 points to 1,843.11. The index had earlier dipped to a low of 1,841.05.

The top losers included KLK, Timecom, United Plantations, Carlsberg, Petronas Gas, Daibochi, RHB Capital, Takaful, CIMB, Sime Darby, GAB and Genting Malaysia.

Priceworth was the most actively traded counter with 53.32 million shares done. The stock rose 3.85% or one sen to 27 sen.

The other actives included Asia Bio, Century Software, Pasukhas, Globaltec, DGB, Iris Corp and Goodway.

The top gainers included BAT, Amway, PPB, Press Metals, Pestech, MISC, Berjaya Auto, Fiamma, Ideal, Scientex, Muhibbah and Litrak.

M & A Securities research head Rosnani Rasul in a market preview Wednesday said Wall Street made some gains on Tuesday driven by speculation that the US Federal Reserve will be less hawkish on the monetary outlook which is due to be released this Wednesday.

She said the S&P 500 and DJIA added 14.85 (0.75%) and 100.83 (0.59%) points to end at 1,998.98 and 17,131.97 respectively.

Rosnani said that the Fed was due to give its monetary decision on Wednesday and many have been betting that the Fed will give ‘forward guidance’ on this given the strength of economic indicators of late especially when inflation and unemployment rate have touched their self-imposed target.

Notwithstanding that, Rosnani said she did not think that the Fed would be hasty in throwing in their opinion in this especially when they need to make sure that the trend is solid enough before calling in their shot.

“Hence, we agree that the US Fed will be less hawkish on the monetary outlook which will be good for the global equity market,” she said.

On another note, Rosnani said Malaysia would also be issuing its latest policy decision tomorrow and we believe that monetary stance will not be changed especially when IPI and export growth have been quite weak in July.

“We could be risking these indicators performance should policy rate get tightened further. Malaysia also will be announcing its latest CPI numbers today which we think will still be elevated.

“As for today, we think that the local market may recover some lost ground but that will be capped by the cautiousness ahead of the US and BNM policy decision,” she said.