Malaysia's benchmark stock index remained in positive motion at midday after seeing a good performance on Wall Streets that restored investors' hopes. It gained a small increase of 0.13% in the early trading session despite yesterday's market situation being quite gloomy.
At exactly 12.30pm today, the FBM KLCI rose by 2.99 points to 1,453.77 and most luxury stocks traded higher following four days of profit taking.
In its research note today, Rakuten Trade Sdn Bhd said Wall Street remained strong following bullish sentiment on US equities which continued to push the three major indices close to record highs.
He also said that they expect this upward trend to ease the market situation if the Federal Reserve (The Fed) decides to further extend the US interest rate adjustment period.
Looking at the market movement, the sentiment shows positive where the profit counter of 391 exceeds the total of the loss counter of 379. The trading volume is 1.84 billion shares worth RM937.18 million.
At the local level, the FBM KLCI fell to the 1,450 level following no follow-up activity from local stock purchases and in the slow trading environment yesterday.
Heavyweight stocks saw Hong Leong Bank add 16 sen to RM18.66, Petronas Chemicals rose four sen to RM7.23, Maybank and YTL Power each gained two sen to RM8.91 and RM2.52.
As for active shares, Sarawak Cable gained five sen to 33 sen, Bina Puri and Minetech rose half a sen to nine sen and 16 sen respectively while TWL fell half a sen to three sen.
On the index board, the FBM ACE Index rose 5.14 points to 5,224.11, the FBM Emas Index rose 17.47 points to 10,822.62 while the FBMT 100 Index rose 14.57 points to 10,481.75.
The FBM 70 Index rose 22.40 points to 14,647.99 and the FBM Emas Shariah Index added 12.31 points to 11,023.84.