KUALA LUMPUR, July 29 (Bernama) -- Bursa Malaysia rebounded to close higher on Wednesday on selective buying of defensive stocks after a volatile trading session. IPPFA Sdn Bhd director of investment strategy and country economist Mohd Sedek Jantan said consumer products and services stocks lifted the key index higher, overcoming lingering geopolitical concerns. At 5 pm, the FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) rose 3.08 points to 1,715.56 from yesterday’s close of 1,712.48. The benchmark index, which opened 1.91 points higher at 1,714.39, moved between 1,710.79 and 1,720.59 during the day’s trading. In the broader market, gainers outstripped decliners 550 to 476, while 612 counters were unchanged, 1,129 untraded, and 48 suspended. Turnover rose to 2.96 billion units valued at RM2.48 billion from 2.94 billion units valued at RM2.56 billion on Tuesday.
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...