KUALA LUMPUR: Bursa Malaysia eked out cautious gains at the start of Thursday trading, perhaps spurred on by the tabling of Budget 2023 on Friday.
Following a decline on Wall Street overnight, observers are expecting a pause in the global rally as investors cash in on recent rapid gains.
However, Malacca Securities Research expects continued buying interest in selected sectors.
"We believe the investors may favour energy stocks following the uptick in crude oil price after OPEC+ announced the production cut policy.
"Besides, budget-related counters including solar related, telecommunications, and selected consumer stocks may gain traction.
"Also, we like the technology sector as Wall Street ended mildly negative," said Malacca Securities Research in a report.
At 9.05am, the FBM KLCI was up 3.58 points to 1,424.13. There were 137 gainers compared with 76 decliners for an overall positive market.
Trading volume was 189.58 million shares valued at RM49.11mil.
Trading was off to a slow start on the blue-chip index with many counters remaining unchanged as investors awaited further leads from the upcoming Budget.
Maybank was up one sen to RM8.71, CIMB gained one sen to RM5.27 and MISC rose five sen to RM7.05.
Dialog rose three sen to RM2.03 and Inari rose two sen to RM2.58.
ACE Market debutant Cosmos surged 23 sen to 58 sen on the back of over 40 million units traded, making it the second most active counter.
Top traded MMAG was up 0.5 sen to three sen with 146.1 million units crossing, while MQ Tech, also active with 7.71 million shares traded, was flat at three sen