KUALA LUMPUR: The volatility on the FBM KLCI continued on Friday following a series of ups and downs over the course of the week.
The index spiked in early morning trade and trended higher to end at 1,609.56 points at midday break.
This comes on the heels of a 12-point plunge late in Thursday trade to erase all its gains from the previous day.
With investors staying on the sidelines amid the volatility, trading volume on the FBM KLCI was also notably low with 1.02 billion shares exchanging hands for RM553.19bil in the morning session.
Market breadth was positive with 345 gainers versus 282 decliners and 344 counters unchanged.
Among the top active counters on the stock exchange, Lambo rose 0.5 sen to seven sen, Impiana was unchanged at four sen and Focus was 0.5 sen higher at 11.5 sen.
Heavyweights seeing positive price action were Nestle climbing 90 sen to RM146,20, Public Bank rising 18 sen to RM22.44 and Ambank gaining nine sen to RM4.42.
Carlsberg also saw bullish action, adding 66 sen to RM23.90 on positive earnings results released yesterday.
Meanwhile, the fallout from US President Donald Trumps' national emergency targeting China's Huawei Technologies continued to weigh on Chinese investors.
The Shanghai Composite Index fell 1.5% while the CSI300 Index dropped 1.7% and Hong Kong's Hang Seng INdex slid 0.8%.
Elsewhere, Japan's Nikkei index rose 1.1% while South Korea's Kospi Index was up 0.1%.
Oil price however stayed on its uptrend as Middle East tension persisted, threatening to derail global supply.
US crude gained 29 cents to US$63.16 a barrel and Brent rose 25 cents to US$72.87 a barrel.
In currencies, the ringgit was 0.25% weaker against the US dollar at 4.1745. It rose 0.1% against the pound sterling at 5.3407 and gained 0.25% against the Singapore dollar at 3.0362.
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