KUALA LUMPUR: Bursa Malaysia took the lead of world markets as sentiment improved overnight on a possible end to the US-China trade dispute when Beijing sends a delegation to Washington for talks in late August.
All three major indices on Wall Street rose overnight with the Dow Jones jumping 1.5%, the most since April.
Japan's Nikkei followed suit at Friday's open, rising 0.3% in early morning trade.
At 9.05am, the FBM KLCI was on track to capitalise on the improved investor sentiment, gaining 3.91 points to 1,781.18. Trading volume was 125.57 million shares valued at RM53.52mil. There were 246gainers versus 46 decliners and 166 counters unchanged.
In early active trade, KAB jumped four sen to 29.5 sen, Pesona rose 1.5 sen to 30.5 sen and QES gained half a sen to 25 sen.
Some of the leading gainers included BAT, rising 50 sen to RM35.84, Petronas Dagangan, climbing 30 sen to RM26.90 and Elsoft, jumping eight sen to RM3.15.
On the declining end, F&N lost 36 sen to RM37.44, Petronas Gas shaved 10 sent o RM18.28 and PPB dropped 10 sent to RM16.86.
In oil markets, prices fell on Friday, with US crude heading for a seventh weekly decline amid increasing concerns about slowing global economic growth that could hit demand for petroleum products, Reuters reported
Brent crude oil futures were down five cents at US$71.38 a barrel. WTI crude futures dropped four cents to US$65.42 a barrel.
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