At 12.30pm, the FBM KLCI was up 3.31 points to 1,586.81, mostly on the back of a jump in financial stocks. Most counters on the 30-stock index were in the red, signalling some profit-taking in the heavyweights following the recent rally.
Bank counters were on the advance with Public bank rising 50 sen to RM18.50, Maybank adding five sen to RM7.96, CIMB adding seven sen to RM3.87, Hong Leong Bank rising six sen to RM14.60 and RHB jumping 10 sen to RM5.16.
Trading on the broader market continued to ramp up volume, fresh off a record-breaking performance in yesterday's session. At 7.1 billion shares, more shares had exchanged hands today than at the same time yesterday. The value of the shares traded was RM2.41bil.
AirAsia
was one of the most heavily traded counters of the day with 152.9 million shares exchanging hands. The aviaton counter was up 4.5 sen following steep sell-off yesterday on news that the airline had met the criteria for PN17 status, although it received an exemption from Bursa Malaysia.Leading the heavy trading day was PDZ with 477.1 million shares traded, down 3.5 sen to 17 sen. Fintec came in second place, down one sen to 10 sen and VC rounded up the top three, 0.5 sen higher at 8.5 sen.
Asian equities markets were mostly higher with gains of between 0.5% and 1% in key markets. Singapore's Straits Times and the Philippines Stock Exchange Index were the two laggards in Southeast Asia, falling 0.3% and 1.1% respectively.
Meanwhile, the rising numbers of Covid-19 infection in the US renewed fears of the country returning to lockdown.
WTI crude was down five cents to US$40.85 a barrel and Brent crude dripped two cents to US$43.27 a barrel.
On the forex market, the ringgit was up 0.2% to 4.2638 against the greenback. It slipped 0.6% against the pound sterling to 5.3858 and 0.2% against the Singapore dollar to 3.0677.