KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 1 — Consumer counters are poised to benefit from lower costs of raw material imports and improved margins as the ringgit continues to strengthen, according to Bursa Malaysia Bhd.

In a post on X today, it said this has resulted in the Consumer Products and Services sector in the local bourse growing 1.0 per cent last week, followed by REITs with 0.3 per cent and the Plantation sector with 0.2 per cent.

Meanwhile, in its Trade Performance and Fund Flow Week Ended Sept 27 report, Bursa Malaysia said the FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI), pared its gains to close marginally lower at 1,660.09 points, primarily due to broad-based profit-taking activities.

"The contraction was in line with the performance of its regional peers,” it said.

Bursa Malaysia noted that stock exchanges in South-east Asia mostly ended on a negative note last week, as only two out of six exchanges closed higher.

It said the Philippines Stock Exchange PSEi Index (PCOMP) posted the largest gains among its Southeast Asian peers as it advanced by 2.4 per cent, while being the only country to witness foreign inflows during the week (US$190.42 million).

"Overall, (Bursa Malaysia’s) market capitalisation moderated and closed 0.2 per cent lower at RM2,051.90 billion, dragged by a broad-based market decline where 10 out of 13 sector indices edged lower on a week-on-week basis,” it said.

Emerging markets, however, expanded further last week, primarily driven by Chinese markets after experiencing their biggest weekly rally since 2008.

The exchange said both the Shanghai Composite Index and Shenzhen Composite Index emerged as top performers among their Asian peers, closing 12.8 per cent and 16.3 per cent higher respectively.

Last week, China’s central bank unveiled a broad package of monetary stimulus measures in an attempt to revive its economy. These stimulus measures include an 800 billion yuan injection into the country’s stock market to boost liquidity, as well as a plan to create a stock market stabilisation fund.

"Additionally, the central bank trimmed its key interest rates, cutting its seven-day reverse repo rate by 0.2 percentage points to 1.5 per cent and slashing the reserve requirement ratio (RRR) of financial institutions by 0.5 percentage points.

"All in all, six out of the ten observed Asian stock exchanges closed higher last week, while the MSCI Emerging Markets (EM) closed 6.2 per cent higher,” Bursa Malaysia added. — Bernama