KUALA LUMPUR: The forthcoming general election will be the main catalyst to spur the local equity market, said Kenanga Investment Bank Bhd (KIBB) Group Managing Director, Datuk Chay Wai Leong.
“An election rally is expected to support the market and there will be excitement until the actual day,” he told reporters on the sidelines of the KenTrade Trading Challenge III Prize Presentation here yesterday.
Chay said the domestic market had strong fundamentals, but market sentiment would play an important role in setting its direction. On foreign investor participation, he said global and regional funds would leave a particular market if their investments reached a certain level.
“If they think that Malaysian stocks have reached certain valuations, they will move on to other markets in or the region or elsewhere and return when corporate earnings grow,” he said.
Meanwhile, the trading competition, which has entered its third season, attracted some 25,000 entries, 66 per cent of whom were male and the rest female participants.
The overwhelming response to the challenge was a testament to the success of the group’s campaign to promote share trading to the next generation of traders in the marketplace, KIBB said. The competition, which was divided into two stages, is one of KIBB’s strategy to increase retail participation in Bursa Malaysia. In the first stage, called the Virtual Trading Challenge, each participant was given RM1 million in virtual money to trade with.
The top 10 traders in the Virtual Trading Challenge, which ran from July 31 to Aug 25, qualified as finalists for the second stage, which is the Grand Challenge. In the Grand Challenge, which took place from Sept 4-29, each finalist received RM100,000 cash from KIBB to trade in shares listed on Bursa Malaysia.
At the end of this period, the trader with the highest portfolio value and trading profits is declared the winner. Mohd Fairi Che Wanik, who is a full-time trader, was declared this season’s winner. On top of getting to keep 50 per cent of the gains he made from the Grand Challenge, the 40-year old trader also received a RM50,000 cash prize and a round trip for two to Hokkaido, Japan.
