KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia's benchmark stock index retraced nearly all its losses from earlier in the day to end the early session above the 1,600 key support.
At 12.30pm, the FBM KLCI halted for the lunch break just 0.27 points lower at 1,601.61, bouncing back nearly 13 points from its intraday low as investors switched to bargain-hunting mode.
Bank stocks remained underwater with CIMB down six sen to RM7.93, Hong Leong Bank shedding 18 sen to RM20.32 and Maybank sliding four sen to RM2.23.
Other laggards included Tenaga Nasional falling 16 sen to RM13.88, PETRONAS Chemicals losing nine sen to RM5.33 and Press Metal
down three sen to RM4.72.
Meanwhile, the lower liners continued to weigh heavily on the broader market for a negative spread of 524 decliners to 355 gainers.
Of actives, Bina Puri fell two sen to 34 sen, Classita rose 0.5 sen to four sen and Talam Transform gained 0.5 sen to 2.5 sen.
The market trading volume was 1.21 billion shares changing hands for RM1.21bil.
In Asian markets, investors remained cautious as they awaited the US payrolls data tonight and the US presidential election, which will take place on Tuesday.
Japan's Nikkei led declines with a 2.3% drop to 38,810. Singapore's Straits Times was 0.29% lower at 3,548.
In China, the composite index was up 0.6% to 3,299 while Hong Kong's Hang Seng was up 1.57% to 20,635.
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