KUALA LUMPUR: Trading on Bursa Malaysia shrugged off a slow start as it entered midday, with glove stocks climbing on reports over the spread of Covid cases in the country.
At 12pm, there were 470 declining stocks on Bursa Malaysia, compared to 360 gainers to indicate a negative breadth on the market.
There were 2.73 billiion shares traded for a value of RM1.61bil.
Top Glove led a surge in glove stocks, climbing seven sen to 97 sen as the top actively traded counter with 218.33 million shares traded.
Careplus was the second most actively traded, soaring 8.5 sen to 43.5 sen, while ACE Market debutant Critical Holdings entered the third spot with a 19.5 sen gain to 54.5 sen.
In other glove counters, Hartalega
rose nine sen to RM2.78, Kossan climbed eight sen to RM1.88 and Supermax added 7.5 sen to 99.5 sen.
Meanwhile, bank stocks led the benchmark FBM KLCI 4.79 points higher to 1,467.24 at midday amid the positive sentiment over the economy.
CIMB jumped 11 sen to RM5.94, Public Bank gained three sne to RM4.34 , Hong Leong Bank added eight sen to RM19.58 and RHB gained two sen to RM5.55.
Regionally, major equities markets were subdued as economists anticipate the Bank of Japan to move away from ultra-easy monetary policies.
Japan's Nikkei dropped 0.8% to 32,693 while South Korea's Kospi gained 0.2% to 2,568.
China's composite index slid 0.1% 2,938 and Hong Kong's Hang Seng fell 0.9% to 16,633.
