KUALA LUMPUR: Bursa Malaysia was one of the few regional markets to follow Wall Street's lead in pushing higher as the lira retraced some losses in the previous session.
Japan's Nikkei was down 1.1%, Shanghai's Composite Index down 1.3% and Hong Kong's Hang Seng down 1.5%.
At 12.30pm, the FBM KLCI bucked the trend by rising 1.52 points to 1,785.30. Trading volume was 1.45 billion shares valued at RM853.07mil.There were 391 gainers versus 381 decliners and 380 counters unchanged.
Tenaga Nasional moved higher by 18 sen to RM15.84, more than recouping the losses it had made following Monday's selloff.
IHH also picked up four sen to RM5.45 after two days of losses stemming from its exposure to Turkey via its Acibadem healthcare unit.
CIMB rose five sen to RM5.90 and Hong Leong Bank gained two sen to RM19.06 while Maybank slid one sen to RM9.79 and Public Bank lost two sen to RM24.38.
Nestle headed for a second day of decline, losing RM1.10 to RM146.10 following the release of its quarterly results yesterday.
Meanwhile, Hartalega
pushed higher for a second day, adding 14 sen to RM6.77.
On the broader market, Elsoft surged 18 sen to RM2.91, Edgenta advanced 11 sen to RM2.40 and Thong Guan moved 11 sen higher to RM2.98.
On the losing end, F&N lost 19 sen to RM27.70, MSM dropped 15 sen to RM3.63 and SAM fell 14 sen to RM7.56.
Oil prices slid on Wednesday as the economic outlook continued to weigh on sentiment. WTI crude dropped 28 cents to US$66.76 a barrel while Brent crude fell 13 cents to US$72.33 a barrel.
In currencies, the Turkish lira resumed its slide against the US dollar, falling 0.6% to 6.4727.
The ringgit also weakened against the greenback by 0.16% to 4.1027. It moved 0.4% higher against the pound sterling at 5.2099 and 0.3% against the Singapore dollar at 2.9722.
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