At 12.30pm, the FBM KLCI was up 16.86 points to 1,628.9, erasing most of the losses experienced over the prior two days of trading.
Malacca Securities Research believes the proclamation of a state of emergency should reduce some of the political uncertainties in the country, which helped to lift the market sentiment and trigger a round of bargain hunting.
"Investors are likely to participate within the healthcare sector which sees earnings certainties amid rising Covid-19 cases.
"Besides, transport and logistics counters should also be under the limelight due to further lockdown measures starting today," it said.
Banks however were the main gainers on the market as investor gained optimism in the economy and financial sector. Public Bank jumped RM1.08 to RM21.16, Maybank climbed 18 sen to RM8.18, CIMB added nine sen to RM4.01 and Hong Leong Bank added 18 sen to RM17.68.
Glove counters saw some profit-taking with Top Glove falling five sen to RM6.63, Hartalega
dropping 12 sen to RM13.02 and Supermax losing 10 sen to RM7.20.Energy stocks were also in focus as crude oil prices continued their upward momentum. Brent crude rose 1.4% to US$57.39 a barrel while WTI crude gained 1.3% to US$53.89 a barrel amid a drawdown in US inventories.
Bumi Armada
was one of the top traded stocks of the day, rising tw sen to 36.5 sen on the back of 105.73 million shares traded.Hibiscus Petroleum jump three sen to 60.5 sen while Petra Energy climbed nine sen to RM1.06.
Meanwhile, key Asian markets rose on positive sentiment over the ongoing vaccine programmes.
Japan's Nikkei was up 0.9%, South Korea's Kospi added 0.8%.
China's markets however were mostly unchanged with the benchmark Shanghai index down 0.1% and Hong Kong's Hang Seng a fraction of a percent lower.
Australia's ASX200 meanwhile was 0.1% higher.