KUALA LUMPUR: Asia's positive performance in the previous session coupled with Wall Street's surge overnight reinforced the sentiment that the recent tariffs exchange was not as bad as expected.
While China retaliated to the US's tariffs announcement with a tax of its own on US$60bil of US imports, observers say the exchange could have been worse.
In early morning trade, Japan's Nikkei rose 1.5%, tracking Wall Street's confidence and on hopeful sentiment that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will win the Liberal Democratic Party leadership election on Thursday.
Bursa Malaysia followed suit, shrugging off the weakness of the previous day to track the positive performance of major markets.
At 9.10am, the FBM KLCI was up 8.8 points to 1,801.74. Total volume was RM130.99mil worth RM96.69mil.
Market breadth was positive with 202 gainers versus 73 decliners and 164 counters unchanged.
Sapura Energy
remained the top active stock in early morning trade, gaining one sen to 45.5 sen.
Vizione also pushed higher on high investor interest, gaining 0.5 sen to 14.5 sen.
Mi Equipment continued its winning ways with another 13 sen advance to RM3.28.
Meanwile, AirAsia X saw some selling pressure, sliding one sen to 28 sen.
WCT remained in the spotlight following the announcement of its RM1.77bil job win yesterday, gaining one sen to 94 sen.
Among the KLCI heavyweights, Hong Leong Financial Group rose 34 sen to RM19.50. Petronas Gas gained 20 sen to RM19.20 while Hong Leong Bank added 10 sen to RM20.30.
IHH, the top loser on the KLCI yesterday, continued to slide, losing nine sen to RM4.97.
Meanwhile, oil prices on Wednesday pulled back from gains racked up the previous day, pushed down amid a surprise climb in US crude stockpiles, Reuters reported.
Brent crude futures dropped 22 cents to US$78.81 per barrel retracing Tuesday's gains. WTI crude fell 14 cents to US$69.71 a barrel.
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