KUALA LUMPUR: The local stock exchange made a mild recovery to the 1,700 mark following yesterday's selloff that saw the FBM KLCI lose 1.4% of its value amid weakness in global equities.
Three of the four top losers of the previous session - Axiata, CIMB and TNB - rebounded in the morning session as investors picked up on cheap valuations.
TNB rose six sen to RM14.14, CIMB picked up five sen to RM5.80 and Axiata recouped 15 sen to RM3.40.
Maybank, which topped the losers table yesterday, fell a further four sen to RM9.36.
At 12.30pm, the FBM KLCI was 3.22 points higher at 1,700.82. Despite the partial recovery in blue chips, market breadth on Bursa Malaysia remained negative with 443 decliners to 246 advancers and 318 counters unchanged. Turnover was 1.35 billion shares valued at RM818.24mil.
Among top active counters, Prestariang jumped 7.5 sen or 17.5% to 53 sen. The stock exchange had suspended short-selling in the stock as the daily short-selling trade limit had reached 3% of the issued number of shares.
Top gainers include UMW rising 10 sen to RM4.80, Pharmaniaga
gaining nine sen to RM2.82 and Petron Malaysia adding nine sen to RM7.29.
On the decline, Globetronic shed 19 sen to RM2.14, Inari fell 12 sen to RM2.09 and Serba Dinamik dropped 17 sen to RM3.91.
Oil prices picked up again on Wednesday following the plunge in oil prices yesterday triggered by Saudi Arabia's pledge to maintain its supply of crude to markets. WTI curde gained 15 cents to US$66.58 a barrel while Brent crude rose 31 cents to US$76.75 a barrel.
In currencies, the ringgit was marginally higher against the greenback at 4.1630. It was also slightly higher against the pound sterling at 54071 and 0.1% lower against the Singapore dollar at 3.0225.
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