KUALA LUMPUR: Bursa Malaysia and key Asian markets closed higher for the second day on Thursday as investors felt some relief over a hopeful easing of US-China trade wars but the FBM KLCI was still fard off the key 1,700 level.

At 5pm, the FBM KLCI was up 12.73 points or 0.77% to 1,676. Turnover was 1.57 billion shares valued at RM1.65bil. There were 371 gainers, 397 losers and 381 counters unchanged.

Hong Kong shares finished higher on Thursday as investors cheered signs of easing Sino-US trade tensions and on expectations of stronger policy support for Beijing's cooling economy, Reuters reported.

Petronas Dagangan added 66 sen to RM25.98 and Petronas Gas gained 18 sen to RM19.20, spurred on by the International Energy Agency (IEA) statement that the global oil market could move into deficit sooner than expected.

IEA said the deficit would be due to Opec's output agreement with Russia and others and to Canada's decision to cut supply, Reuters reported.

The Paris-based IEA kept its 2019 forecast for global oil demand growth at 1.4 million barrels per day, unchanged from its projection last month, and said it expected growth of 1.3 million bpd this year, according to Reuters.

HLFG and Hong Leong Bank added 28 sen each to RM19.20 and RM20.50 while MAHB advanced 20 sen to RM8.03.

Panasonic Malaysia advanced 28 sen to RM37.90 and Genting Plantation 25 senhigher at RM9.70.

Bumi Armada edged up 0.5 of a sen to 18 sen and it was actively traded with 130.59 million shares done.

My EG Services climbed 8.5 sen to 92.5 sen.

Ajinomoto fell 28 sen to RM17.98 and BAT 24 sen to RM36.84 but Nestle advanced 90 sen to RM146.40, F&N  88 sen to RM33.20.

Westports lost 12 sen to RM4.82 while refiners Hengyuan fell 13 sen to RM4.82 and Petron 11 sen to RM6.48.