KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 14 — Bursa Malaysia is expected to trade higher next week with investors likely to go on a bargain-hunting mode following last week's losses but progress in the Covid-19 vaccine development will weigh on risk appetite.

Bank Islam Malaysia Bhd economist Adam Mohamed Rahim said the local bourse could expect to see further retracement in the glove counters due to Covid-19 vaccine news.

He also expects small capitalisation stocks to start making a comeback.

"We expect to see the FBM KLCI move between a support level of 1,580 and resistance level of 1,595 next week,” he told Bernama.

Asked whether Malaysia's third-quarter (Q3) gross domestic product performance would influence trading next week, he said "it would not because many people have likely priced it in.”

During the week-just-ended, market sentiment was largely influenced by the expansionary Budget 2021 and Pfizer's successful Covid-19 vaccine Phase 3 trial.

Banking counters surged during mid-week as the blanket moratorium was not extended under Budget 2021, which bodes well for banks’ earnings.

On Friday, Bank Negara Malaysia announced Malaysia’s economy recovered by recording a smaller contraction of 2.7 per cent in Q3 2020 against -17.1 per cent in the previous quarter.

This upbeat performance, however, is not strong enough to further fuel risk appetite in the market as many investors have factored it in.

The FBM KLCI ended 70.05 points firmer to end the week at 1,589.69 compared with 1,519.64 registered last Friday.

On the scoreboard, the FBM Emas Index surged 391.02 points to 11,409.99, the FBMT 100 Index soared 390.76 points to 11,204.04 and the FBM Emas Shariah Index put on 51.63 points to 13,327.03.

The FBM 70 advanced 106.18 points to 14,622.98 and the FBM ACE Index rose 250.84 points to 11,224.75.

Sector-wise, the Financial Services Index ballooned 1,273.55 points to 13,568.01, the Plantation Index bagged 180.82 points to 7,304.2 while the Industrial Products and Services Index added 6.41 points to 156.2.

The Technology Index slipped 0.09 of-a-point to 64.62 while the Healthcare Index decreased 139.18 points to 3,991.15.

Weekly turnover almost doubled to 67.71 billion units worth RM29.51 billion from 34.28 billion units worth RM18.51 billion last week.

Main Market volume surged to 31.07 billion shares worth RM21.53 billion from 16.30 billion shares worth RM13.88 billion.

Warrants turnover increased to 4.46 billion units worth RM807.03 million from 4.08 billion units worth RM842.51 million in the preceding week.

The ACE Market volume soared to 32.17 billion shares worth RM7.17 billion from 10.68 billion shares worth RM3.75 billion previously. — Bernama