KUALA LUMPUR: The local bourse made a rebound in Wednesday morning trade with the FBM KLCI rising as much as 23 points before retracing some gains by midday.
The rebound comes even as China extended its sharp losses from the previous session, losing a further 0.6% by noon.
At 12.30pm, the FBM KLCI was up 2.65 points to 1,718.01. Trading volume was a low 966.88 million shares with a value of RM903.19mil.
There were 324 decliners compared to 318 gainers and 371 counters unchanged.
On the rising end of the market, Digi put on seven sen to RM4.40 and MISC gained 16 sen to RM6.07 while Genting added 14 sen to RM8.64.
Tenaga Nasional also lifted six sen to RM14.22 while Petronas Chemicals rose four sen to RM8.40.
MAHB rose 19 sen to RM8.81 while KL Kepong gained 16 sen to RM24.14.
Bank stocks continued to weigh on the market as Public Bank saw a 24 sen drop to RM23.12 while Hong Leong Bank also slipped 20 sen to RM18.46.
CIMB was two sen higher to RM5.88 while RBH slid one sen to RM5.62 and Maybank was unchanged at RM9.28.
Meanwhile, Mi Equipment made its debut on the Main Market of Bursa Malaysia. While it opened three sen lower than its offer price of RM1.42, the counter picked up in later trading to rise 19 sen to RM1.61.
Also seeing active trade was MyEG, which grew three sen to RM1.01, and Iris, which rose 3.5 sen to 22 sen.
Oil prices experienced a late morning pick up after a 400,000-barrel storage tank collapsed, dirupting Libyan supplies, while a drop is US commercial crude invesntories also buoyed prices.
WTI cride rose 23 cents to US$65.30 a barrel while Brent crude gained 17 cents to US$73.25 a barrel.
In currencies, the ringgit slid 0.14% against the greenback to 4.0080. It was also 0.23% weaker against the Singapore dollar at 2.9535 and slightly higher against the pound sterling at 5.2727.
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