BURSA Malaysia Bhd expects domestic political stability and the dovish stance of the US Federal Reserves to continue to support the local market, chief executive officer Muhamad Umar Swift said.

He said that the market has responded positively to the appointment of Anwar Ibrahim as the 10th prime minister following the 15th general election on November 19.

“We are now looking forward to the appointment of the cabinet members and everything that provides greater certainty will be welcomed by the market,” he told reporters after launching the Shares2share securities donation scheme in Kuala Lumpur today.

Shares2share enables investors to donate their listed securities or proceeds from the sale of their listed securities towards charity through Yayasan Bursa Malaysia.

Umar said the Fed’s dovish position was an exogenous factor that has been well accepted by the market and is concurrently driving growth and demand for riskier assets.

“Malaysian stocks are currently undervalued and we foresee a buying opportunity. We are looking forward to see continued support from foreign investors last week. There have been strong investors last week and continued interest,” he added.

The benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI Index rallied 4% to close at 1,501.88 points last Thursday, its best day since March 2020, but at the lunch break today, the index stood at 1,471.16 points.

On Shares2share, Umar said the scheme offered two share donation methods, namely donation of shares without a tax receipt and donation of sale proceeds with tax receipt, which allowed the investor donor to receive a tax deduction.

“Please note that to receive a tax receipt, you need to be a client of one of the 15 participating organisations partnering with Yayasan Bursa Malaysia in Shares2share.

“The 15 participating organisations collaborating with us on Shares2share have agreed to waive their brokerage fees and their portion of the Central Depository System (CDS) transfer fee,” he said.

He said the exchange would, likewise, be waiving the 0.03% clearing fee as well as the CDS transfer fee.

He added that all these waivers would allow Yayasan Bursa Malaysia to extract as much value as possible from the donated shares. – Bernama, November 29, 2022.