KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia's benchmark stock index maintained a lead in morning trade as the rescue of Switzerland's Credit Suisse from default helped to lift bank stocks from recent lows.
At 12.30pm, the FBM KLCI was up 6.19 points to 1,408 with financial counters leading the rebound.
The market breadth was positive with 379 gainers compared with 305 decliners.
Trading volume was 1.69 billion shares valued at RM866.74mil.
Maybank rose six sen to RM8.40, Public Bank gained three sen to RM3.98, CIMB added four sen to RM5.19 although Hong Leong Bank slipped 10 sen to RM20.
IHH rose eight sen to RM5.92, CelcomDigi climbed 10 sen to RM4.25 and PPB added 10 sen to RM16.66.
Meanwhile there were also increases in F&N up 84 sen to RM25.94, Ajinomoto adding 30 sen to RM14.60 and Hap Seng adding 19 sne to RM5.20.
Among actives, Hong Seng rose 0.5 sen to 13.5 sen, Green Packet was unchanged at 5.5 sen and Top Glove was flat at 90.5 sen.
In key Asian markets, South Korea's Kospi rose 0.3% to 2,387, China's composite index added 0.15% to 3,239 and Hong Kong's Hang Seng gained 0.3% to 19,063.
Australia's ASX200 was up 0.9% to 6,962.
Japan's stock markets were closed for a national holiday.
