KUALA LUMPUR: The FBM KLCI shrugged off the weakness from earlier in the day as financial services stocks led the index out of the red.
Helping pull the domestic market out of its malaise was positive industrial data coming out of China, which offered rare optimism over a recovery in the world's second largest economy.
At 12.30pm, the benchmark index was 4.13 points stronger at 1,556.96 with an almost equal breadth of 449 gainers to 441 decliners, while 461 counters remained unchanged.
The trading volume was 2.31 billion shares crossing for RM1.29bil.
Among the country's leading banks, Maybank rose eight sen to RM9.79, Public Bank rose three sen to RM4.30, CIMB gained five sen to RM6.66 while RHB rose 0.5 sen to RM5.67.
YTL Power climbed 23 sen to RM3.91, which matches a two-week closing high, while YTL Corp gained 17 sen to RM2.78.
Telekom Malaysia, however, erased gains from last Friday's close, dropping 47 sen to RM6.03.
The day's top actives were Hong Seng unchanged at 1.5 sen, Pan Malaysia up 0.5 sen to 19 sen and Sapura Energy
flat at 4.5 sen.
Asian markets were seen climbing on the back of China's positive economic data despite some caution over the US Federal Open Market Committee meeting scheduled for later this week.
Reuters reported that China's industrial output climbed an annual 7% over January and February, while retail sales rose 5.5% on a year earlier.
However, real estate concerns continued to weigh on investors' spirits as property investment fell 9% on the year.
China's composite index rose 0.5% to 3,069 while the blue-chip CSI300 rose 0.5% to 3,588. Hong Kong's Hang Seng endured a volatile session but entered midday flat at 16,723.
Meanwhile, Japan's Nikkei surged 2.4% to 39,619, the most improved of Asia-Pacific markets, ahead of a Bank of Japan announcement on Tuesday that is expected to see the central bank exit its negative interest rate policy and lift its benchmark rate to 0% from negative-0.1%.
