KUALA LUMPUR: The FBM KLCI crept higher at the start of Wednesday trading as the market extended a cautious recovery following Monday's bloodbath.
The benchmark index was up 1.73 points to 1,576.12, a marginal increase following the previous day's strong rebound.
"For today, we expect the market to remain defensive as foreign funds and local investors are likely to stay on the sidelines due to ongoing global headwinds such as potential US recessions and geopolitical tensions between Iran and Israel," said Apex Securities Research in a note.
It said funds may continue rotating from small-cap stocks to blue chips during this period of global market turmoil.
Apex Securities maintained a positive long-term outlook for the local bourse but reiterated its advice for investors to be selective at this juncture, focusing on larger-cap stocks and fundamentally sound companies that have dropped below their intrinsic value.
"Finance and REIT sectors are expected to outperform, being safe havens during this volatility," it said.
Stocks that continued to recover included Tenaga Nasional, up 16 sen ot RM13.80, CIMB gaining four sen to RM7.24, QL Resources rising three sen to RM6.55 and Telekom Malaysia adding two sen to RM6.77.
Top actives included Cape EMS down two sen to 38.5 sen, MQ Technology flat at one sen and CN Asia down one sen to 6.5 sen.
Also in early, Japan's Nikkei slipped 0.37% to 34,511 while Singapore's Straits Times declined 1.39% to 3,198.
