KUALA LUMPUR: Bursa Malaysia tracked an uptick in regional sentiment, led by Japan's key stock index that soared to its highest in over three decades.
At 12.30pm, the benchmark FBM KLCI was up 5.54 points to 1,491.91.
The overall market trading volume was 2.85 billion exchanging hands for RM1.63bil.
Among the leading heavyweights, gainers included Genting up seven sen to RM4.71, YTL Power jumping 18 sen to RM3.79, YTL Corp rising 13 sen to RM2.31 and Axiata gaining 12 sen to RM2.66.
The lower liners also rose on bargain-hunting activities with 546 gainers compared to 385 decliners and 378 unchanged.
There was has been growing positivity over the global technology sector following TSMC's improved profit outlook on high-end chips used in AI applications.
Bursa Malaysia's Technology Index climbed 0.3% to 63.43 on the back of the return to tech plays.
Top traded counters were SCIB, bouncing 13 sen higher to 42 sen after the previous week's sharp sell-off; YNH Properties, which fell a further 28.5 sen to 57 sen; and Widad up three sen to 14 sen.
Jentayu Sustainables was up one sen to 51 sen, suggesting investors were hitting pause on the selling the stock for now.
Rapid Synergy, meanwhile, hit limit down for another day after losing 83 sen to RM1.95
In key regional markets, Japan's Nikkei gained 1.2% to 36,401 on the tech rally, bringing its year-to-date gains to 9.4% and one-year improvement to over 35%.
China's market, which has been sold-down by investors on fears over slowing economic growth, continued its descent by 0.9% to 2,807.
Continuing a weeks-long rout, Hong Kong's Hang Seng slumped 2% to hover just above the 15,000 psychological level, after having dipped below the support earlier in the day.
