KUALA LUMPUR: Hwang DBS Vickers Research said there is a possibility that our Malaysian bourse would tumble on Friday, July 2 with its benchmark FBM KLCI sliding below 1,305 (its first support level) towards 1,280 (its second support level) on the chart.

The external mood remains nervous for now. Major U.S. equity indices were down overnight by between 0.3% and 0.4% at the closing bell (after slumping as much as 1.6%-2.3% intra-day) hit by poor manufacturing and home sales data.

Probably weighing down our local stock market performance on Friday are the gaming companies, particularly: (a) Genting Malaysia, in response to its announcement on a related-party transaction to acquire the UK casino operations from Genting Singapore for 340m pounds; and (b) number forecast operators, namely Berjaya Sports Toto, Tanjong and Multi-Purpose Holdings, following the government?s move to raise the pool betting duty by 2% effective 1 Jun.

Separately, the external trade statistics for May will be out later on Friday. One media survey estimated an annual growth rate of 25.8% for exports and 32.2% for imports.