KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 5 (Bernama) -- Bursa Malaysia closed higher, buoyed by Bank Negara Malaysia’s (BNM) decision to maintain the Overnight Policy Rate (OPR) at 2.75 per cent, alongside positive cues from Wall Street. At 5 pm, the FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) rose 19.30 points, or 1.19 per cent, to 1,635.86 from Wednesday’s close of 1,616.56. The benchmark index opened 6.72 points higher at 1,623.28, and fluctuated between an intraday high of 1,642.44 and a low of 1,622.62 during the trading session. However, market breadth was negative, with losers outnumbering gainers 723 to 497, while 466 counters were unchanged, 1,075 untraded and 10 suspended. Turnover rose to 3.74 billion units valued at RM3.61 billion compared with yesterday’s 2.81 billion units valued at RM2.57 billion.
LONDON: Financial markets are betting that Russia, South Africa, Turkey and Colombia could all be next in line for "junk" debt status after Standard and Poor's stripped Brazil of its investment grade. As well as those now teetering on the investment grade/junk cusp, China, Chile, Malaysia, South Africa, Mexico, Indonesia, Thailand, Israel, Saudi Arabia and much of the Middle East are also priced for rating cuts according to some data. Brazil's downgrade had long been expected following recent scandals and its slump towards recession, but it has sharpened the focus on who could be next. Slumping commodity prices and the prospect of rising global interest rates are adding to some liberal helpings of ugly national politics and laying bare a number of countries' failure to reform in the good times. S&P's Capital IQ unit has what it calls Market Derived Signal (MDS) models that show credit default swap markets currently expecting a major wave of EM...