KUALA LUMPUR: Asian markets jumped in Thursday morning trade on the heels of a 1,000-point surge in the Dow Jones Industrial Average overnight.
The bullish turn comes after sales during the US holiday shopping season rose 5.1%, its strongest in six years, and helped boost confidence in the economy.
Meanwhile, the chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers sought to quell political uncertainty by reassuring the market that US Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell would not be removed from his post following criticism from President Donald Trump.
Japan's Nikkei jumped over 5% in early morning trade and pared gains to trade at about 3% higher by 9.20am. Australia's ASX200 was also up 1.2%.
MSCI's gauge of stocks across the globe gained 0.22%
At 9.23am, the FBM KLCI was 5.71 points higher at 1,678.31. Turnover was 309.78 million shares valued at RM139.96mil. There were 348 gainers versus 63 decliners and 131 counters unchanged.
Hibiscus topped the list of most active counters, rising four sen to 81.5 sen. Sapura Energy
was unchanged at 29 sen and Hubline slipped 0.5 sen at 3.5 sen.
Meanwhile, KLCI counters that saw early gains included Petronas Gas, climbing 16 sen oto 18.94 and Top Glove putting on 12 sen to RM5.77.
On the wider market, Allianz gained 28 sen to RM12.68, United Plantation rose 20 sen to RM25.20 and BIMB added 13 sen to RM3.65.
Oil prices retraced some gains following a sharp climb in the previous session amid the rallying stock markets. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures fell 34 cents to US$45.09 a barrel while Brent crude dropped 42 cents to US$54.05 a barrel.
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