Shares on the Bursa Malaysia drifted sideways at the start of the new week on Monday, Oct 12. The benchmark index, the FBM KLCI, fluctuated within a narrow band throughout the trading day.

This mirrors the ambivalent sentiment in key Asian markets on Monday. Bellwether indices in Hong Kong, South Korea and Shanghai ended the day in the red while the Taiwan and Singapore markets closed higher. Japan's stock market was closed for a public holiday.

Investors will be looking to more US corporate earnings results this week for direction. Aluminium manufacturer, Alcoa Inc, kicked off the earnings reporting season last week with results that topped expectations.

Key financial institutions including JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup as well as bellwether companies like General Electric Co and Intel Corp are slated to report their earnings over the next few days. Strong numbers and more importantly, upbeat guidance from management could further fuel the six-month-old market rally.

In other major news, Singapore reported strong GDP growth for the second straight quarter. Its economy grew an annualised 14.9% in 3Q2009, on the back of the revised 22% growth in 2Q2009.

This prompted the government to revise up its 2009 GDP forecast to a contraction of between 2.5% and 2% from its previous forecast of a 4% to 6% fall.

Back on the home front, the FBM KLCI ended the day marginally lower at 1,233.3. Market breadth flitted between positive and negative territories. At the close, the number of gaining counters edged ahead of losing ones.

About 631 million shares were traded. Some of the most actives include Time dotCom, Time Engineering, KNM and 3A.

The latter was also among the top gainers, up 12 sen to RM1.06. Sentiment in the stock was bolstered by the proposed private placement of its shares to Wilmar International, one of the world's biggest palm oil refining and food-related trading companies.