Technical View 20 July 2010

We thought that the FBM KLCI would have gapped down at least 10 pts at the opening bell yesterday after  the DJIA sank by 261.49 pts last Friday. The index had previously been on a seven-day winning stretch over  the last two weeks, gaining 47.6 pts in the process. We had expected the retracement to be much sharper than the 3.3 pt-loss. Even the futures index was down only marginally by 0.5 pts. All we can say is that there were no major signs of panic selling yesterday, not even during the first hour of trading. Genting, IJM and IOI  succumbed to strong selling pressure in the morning although the momentum was not aggressive. In contrast,  there were a few notable gainers in the top-volume list. The Shanghai Composite Index, which rebounded more than 2% yesterday, could have helped support regional market sentiment.
Another point to note is that while the DJIA is obviously trending down within a broad downtrend channel and the index is already 10% off the 2009-2010 rally, the FBM KLCI is indeed only 20 pts away from breaking out from the 2009-2010 rally peak. To our best memory, this is the first time that we saw such resilient performance from the FBM KLCI over at least the last 8 years.
Meanwhile, we maintain our near-term bearish bias view and continue to monitor how the index will  consolidate the strong rebound from the recent low of 1,294.37 pts. As we mentioned before, while the FBM KLCI is trading some 20 pts below the peak of the 2009-2010 rally, the DJIA is obviously still trending down within a broad downtrend channel. From the current level, there is a tough resistance at the 1,350 pt-level.  Immediate support is still situated at the 1,332 pt-level, followed by the 1,326 pt-level.