KUALA LUMPUR: The FBM KLCI shrugged off its early-morning weakness to pace higher as global sentiment improved amid the easing threat of a trade war.
Meanwhile, investors are also looking ahead to upcoming US jobs data and banking on moderating inflation in the world's largest economy.
At 12.30pm, the FBM KLCI was up 4.24 points to 1,589.41 as the index continued its upward retracement.
There was a positive breadth on the broader market with 575 gainers compared to 336 decliners.
Turnover was 1.7 billion shares valued at RM1.08bil.
Shoring up the blue-chip index, YTL Power jumped 17 sen to RM3.40 and CIMB climbed 12 sen to RM8.34.
Telekom Malaysia was also up 12 sen to RM6.76.
Other stocks seeing buying interest included Inari Amertron
rising 25 sen to RM2.68, F&N adding 14 sen to RM26 and Itmax jumping 12 sen to RM3.75.
Of actives, MYEG was up 2.5 sen to RM1.01, Velesto dropped 0.5 sen to 18.5 sen and Harvest Miracle shed two sen to 17.5 sen.
Meanwhile, China's markets rallied on hopes of more stimulus measures from Beijing.
The Shanghai Composite index rose 1.33% to 3,314 while Hong Kong's Hang Seng jumped 1.53% to 21,210.
Singapore's Straits Times gained 0.43% to 3,846. Japan's Nikkei lost 0.56% to 38,843.
