KUALA LUMPUR: The FBM KLCI continued to trend sideways as investors took caution ahead of a European Central Bank (ECB) meeting later today.
A Reuters survey showed that the probability of a 10% rate cut by the ECB had risen to 48% by Wednesday owing to the release of weak manufacturing data.
Key Asian markets kept optimistic with the Shanghai Composite Index gaining 0.3%, the CSI300 Index rising 0.5%, and Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index climbing 0.3%.
Japan's Nikkei Index rose 0.4% while South Korea's Kospi Index dropped 0.55%.
At 12.30pm, the FBM KLCI was down 0.53 points to 1,651.88. Trading volume was 1.58 billion shares valued at RM879.42mil. There were 430 decliners, 244 gainers and 395 counters unchanged.
Genting extended gains over the morning session by three sen to RM6.90 although Genting Malaysia saw some profit-taking and fell three sen to RM3.67 following yesterday's advance.
Other heavyweights seeing notable price action include Petronas Chemicals rising 11 sen to RM7.61 while Petronas Gas dropped 10 sen to RM16.18 and Petronas Dagangan slipped 12 sen to RM24.16.
Rising to the top of the most actively traded list was KNM gaining one sen to 42 sen, Netx unchanged at 1.5 sen and Sumatec unchanged at three sen.
Simmering Middle East tensions continued to push up oil prices even US crude stocks showed a sharper fall than expected.
US crude gained 16 cents to US$56.04 a barrel and Brent crude rose 13 cents to US$63.31 a barrel.
In currencies, the ringgit was flat against the US dollar at 4.1178, the poung sterling at 5.1365 and the Singapore dollar at 3.0176.
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