Market Review

MY: Despite a regional AI stock recovery, the local bourse closed lower, dragged down by banking heavyweights Maybank and Public Bank. However, market breadth stayed positive with 694 gainers outpacing 426 losers. Technology (+2.92%) led sector gains via UWC and Vitrox, while Financials (-1.35%) lagged most.

US: Wall Street extended gains on Wednesday, with the Nasdaq up 1.6%, S&P 500 rising 1.3% and Dow gaining 0.5%, driven by technology, energy and industrial stocks. Micron, Dell and Seagate led tech gains, while Nvidia rebounded 2.9%. However, weakness in McDonald's and Microsoft capped blue-chip gains.

The Day Ahead

US: While Wall Street rebounded on CoreWeave's upbeat guidance and strong demand for Anthropic's IPO, we expect volatility to persist amid reports that Nvidia's board may consider removing CEO Jensen Huang. Stock-wise, we favour Advanced Micro Devices, which could benefit from Nvidia's leadership uncertainty, alongside continued server CPU demand and Google's adoption of AMD EPYC processors for its TPU 8tx infrastructure. Meanwhile, Apple may remain in focus following its recent rally, supported by expectations that a foldable iPhone could lift average selling prices. Lastly, ATI could benefit from stronger aerospace and defence demand, including missile-related applications and its growing order backlog.

MY: Tracking Wall Street's overnight rebound, we expect the local bourse to trade higher today. Meanwhile, SoftBank, Grab and PETROS's proposed US$1.85bn (RM7.5bn) AI infrastructure investment could further strengthen Malaysia's position as a regional AI hub, potentially benefiting construction and power infrastructure players such as GAMUDA, BINASTRA, MNHLDG and CBHB. The consortium's long-term target of at least 5GW of AI compute capacity could also spur demand for data centre M&E services, cooling systems and electrical distribution equipment, benefiting PWRWELL, EITA, KJTS and upcoming ACE Market debutant MYDCD (M+Global TP: RM1.07) on 17 November.