KUALA LUMPUR: Bursa Malaysia continued its recovery as a semblance of calm returned to global markets while investors picked up bargains after the frenzied selling earlier this week.
At the lunch break, the benchmark index was up 19.32 points to 1.23% to 1,593.71, just over 17 points off last Friday's closing price.
All but one of the sectors in the broader market were positive. Plantations proved the sole laggard with heavyweights such as Kuala Lumpur Kepong shedding 58 sen to RM20.84
Meanwhile, utilities were seen jumping on the main index, with YTL Power rising 27 sen to RM4.29 and Tenaga Nasional gaining 50 sen to RM14.14.
Of actives, Cape EMS rose 3.5 sen to 44 sen, Jiankun dropped 1.5 sen to 6.5 sen and MYEG rose 1.5 sen to 90 sen.
There were a total of 905 stocks on the rise while 281 counters slipped into the red. The share turnover was 3.15 billion changing hands for RM1.99bil.
Global investors are looking forward to almost certain monetary easing by the US Federal Reserve in light of recent economic data, while observers noted that the unwinding of the yen carry trade may almost be over.
This was reflected in the quick rebound in the Japanese Exchange, with the Nikkei recovering a further 2.6% to 25,569 to erase nearly all the losses recorded on Monday.
Other Asian markets were also on the rebound; Hong Kong's Hang Seng gained 1.31% to 16,864, China's composite index added 0.31% to 2,876 and Singapore's Straits Times climbed 1.26% to 3,238.
