Market Review

MY: Despite Wall Street's positive overnight performance, the local bourse bucked the trend and closed lower, dragged down by negative sentiment following the limit-down in ZETRIX (-30.0 sen). Sector wise, all sectors ended lower, particularly Technology (-3.65%) and Utilities (-2.41%).

US: Wall Street closed lower on Monday as direct U.S.-Iran military strikes drove a sharp surge in oil prices toward USD90.4 per barrel, while hawkish Jackson Hole comments from Fed Chair Kevin Warsh spurred a sell-off in U.S. Treasuries. The Dow, S&P 500 and Nasdaq retreated by 0.7%, 0.3% and 0.1% respectively.

The Day Ahead

US: Following renewed US military strikes on Iran and Fed Chair Kevin Warsh’s hawkish Jackson Hole debut, we expect Wall Street to trade on a softer note in the near term. Markets are now pricing in a 59.9% chance of a 25bps rate hike by September, compared with 39.9% a week ago. Stock-wise, we continue to favour Nvidia following its strong Q2 results, which also marked its 15th consecutive quarter of earnings beats. Nvidia has guided Q3 revenue to USD108bn, making it the first quarter projected to surpass the USD100bn milestone (excluding any China DC revenue). Growth is set to be led by the ramp-up of the next-gen Vera Rubin platform, with Amazon AWS announcing plans to procure 2m GPUs alongside new Vera CPUs.

MY: Tracking Wall Street’s negative overnight performance, we expect the FBM KLCI to kickstart the shortened trading week on a weaker footing. Stock-wise, we favour automation solutions provider GREATEC, underpinned by its RM1.8bn order book (representing 2.3x FY25 revenue) and multi-sector tailwinds across DC, nuclear energy, solar, and life sciences. Meanwhile, ongoing haze and forest fires in Kalimantan, Indonesia, should also drive a surge in bottled drinking water consumption, benefiting SPRITZER and LWSABAH. Lastly, riding on the country's DC boom and NETR execution, we continue to favour cable manufacturer SCGBHD.