KUALA LUMPUR: The buying momentum continued to build on Bursa Malaysia as foreign funds returned to the market amid improving sentiment for risk assets.
At the lunch break, the FBM KLCI was up 9.53 points to 1,518.73 - returning to the April 3, 2025, closing level, which precedes the sell-off prompted by Trump's Liberation Day announcement.
Over the broader market, volume remained lacklustre with 1.58 billion shares traded for RM825.04mil.
Declining issues outnumbered advancers with a ratio of 1.08-to-1, indicating that the overall market remained uncertain despite the hopeful speculation.
On the external front, there has been the lack of concrete evidence that the US was reaching a tariffs agreement with China, giving investors reasons to take pause on the recovery.
Wall Street futures are at the time of writing pointing towards a weaker opening tonight. Both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq minis were 0.5% lower.
In Asia, stock markets remained propped up by the absence of the fiery rethoric that pervaded headlines in the opening weeks of the trade war.
Japan's Nikkei rose 0.45% to 35,870 while Hong Kong's Hang Seng was slightly positive at 21,997.
Shanghai's composite index was little changed at 3.294. Singapore's Straits Times dropped 0.43% to 3,807.
Top traded blue chips on Bursa Malaysia included Maybank, jumping 11 sen to RM9.98, PETRONAS Dagangan gaining 14 sen to RM19.14 and AmBank rising 12 sen ot RM5.13.
Most actively traded stocks were SNS up two sen to 45.5 sen, Tanco gaining one sen to 87 sen and Astro
rising 2.5 sen to 19.5 sen.
