KUALA LUMPUR: Blue chips shook off the early hesitant start on Thursday to chalk up some gains, underpinned by MISC, Genting and Tenaga, in line with the firmer key Asian markets.
At 9.30am, the FBM KLCI was up 2.21 points or 0.13% to 1,668.75. Turnover was 299.37 million shares valued at RM200mil. There were 183 gainers, 121 losers and 224 counters unchanged.
A gauge of global stock markets edged near this year's peak while benchmark US Treasury yields and the dollar dropped after the Federal Reserve signalled possible interest rate cuts later this year, Reuters reported.
MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan rose 0.2% while Japan's Nikkei gained 0.5%.
The MSCI ACWI, which incorporates readings of 49 equity markets across the world, gained 0.2%, having recovered a large part of its losses made after US President Donald Trump threatened new tariffs on all of China's imports last month.
Oil prices rose over 1% as official data showed US crude stocks fell more than expected and as Opec and other producers finally agreed a date for a meeting to discuss output cuts.
Brent crude futures had risen 82 cents, or 1.3%, to US$62.64 by 0026 GMT. US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures were up 79 cents, or 1.5%, at US$54.55 a barrel.
At Bursa, Nestle rose 50 sen to RM149, MISC 18 sen to RM7.33, Genting 16 sen to RM6.84, Petronas Gas 14 sennto RM17.74 while Tenaga added 10 sen to RM13.38.
Yinson
rose 16 sen to RM5.37, Telekom 14 sen to RM4.09 and Gamuda nine sen to RM3.64.
F&N fell 28 sen to RM34.20, PPB Group 18 sen to RM18.56, Genting Plantations and Public Bank 10 sen each to Rm23 while Hong Leong Bank and Sime Plantations gave up eight sen each to RM18.88 and RM4.92 and Axiata four sen lower at RM5.01.
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