KUALA LUMPUR: The local market started Thursday's session on a soft note but turned positive in the first few minutes of trade.
Regional markets were mixed on Thursday as investors became unnerved over the latest development in the ongoing trade war.
On the heels of China's announcement of additional tariffs of 25% on US$16bil of US imports, analysts at ANZ highlighted reports that President Xi Jinping had asked China's major oil companies to increase dometic output to safeguard the country's energy security, Reuters reported.
Oil prices were mixed with WTI crude sliding six cents to US$66.88 a barrel while Brent crude gained six cents to US$72.34 a barrel.
Meanwhile, trade-sensitive industrial companies on Wall Street such as Boeing and Caterpillar caused a slight decline in the Dow Jones Index overnight.
Back home, the FBM KLCI, which moved past the 1,800 level yesterday, appeared to be holding on to gains.
At 9.10am, the index was up 3.25 points to 1,805.85. There were 162.01 million shares traded with a value of RM101.08mil. Gainers outpaced decliners 167 to 118 with 226 counters unchanged.
Nevertheless, Kenanga Research cautions that the technical stochastic indicators show overbought conditions.
"We do not discount a possibility of seeing corrections towards 1,750 (S1) and 1,720 (S2).
"Should it be able to break out from the 1,830 (R1) resistance level, it may then signal a continuation of a bullish run as next resistance is at 1,870 (R2)," it said in its Thursday morning report.
Among actively traded counters, recent listing Radiant Globaltech picked up 1.5 sen to 40 sen. Ikhmas Jaya rose two sen to 34 sen and HeveaBoard gained two sen to 90.5 sen.
Some top gainers in early trade included Far East, which extended its gains by 30 sen to RM14.50, Tenaga which rose 10 sen to RM15.68 and Petronas Chemicals which gained 13 sen to RM9.17.
Meanwhile, Top Glove slipped six sen to RM10.22, Carlsberg dropped eight sen to RM19.50 and Serba Dinamik
fell five sen to RM3.95.
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