KUALA LUMPUR: Blue chips climbed in early Wednesday trade, powered by gains in Tenaga Nasional, CIMB and RHB Bank, in line with the positive key Asian markets.

At 9.25am, the KLCI was up 12.44 points or 0.76% to 1,639.88. Turnover was 543 million shares valued at RM325.37mil. There were 386 gainers, 106 losers and 232 counters unchanged.

Equity markets in Asia rose after upbeat earnings helped the Nasdaq and S&P 500 indexes reach record closing highs on Wall Street overnight, while oil retreated from its near six-month highs, Reuters reported.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was up 0.1% in early trade in Asia. The gains followed a strong performance on Wall Street, driven by robust results from Coca-Cola, Twitter, United Technologies and Lockheed Martin.

On the outlook for the KLCI, Kenanga Research said while overall technical outlook still appears bearish, “we believe that it may not persist as the stochastic indicator has been in the oversold zone for quite some time”. 

It said should a rebound happen, it was looking towards 1,660 (R1) and 1,700 (R2) as resistance levels. Conversely, downside supports can be found at 1,615 (S1) and 1,600 (S2).

Tenaga rose 14 sen to RM12.42, CIMB 12 sen to RM5.29 and RHB Bank 11 sen to RM5.86.

Press Metal-WC jumped 23 sen to RM4.27, Lafarge 17 sen to RM2.97, Pentamaster 13 sen to RM4.41.

Top Glove extended its winning streak, up 13 sen to RM4.89.

Barakah added one sen to 10.5 sen in active trade after it secured a white knight.

Low-profile TDM and FGV rose three sen each to 23 sen and RM1.29 in active trade.

Ekovest and IWCity were unchanged after they snapped their winning streak on Tuesday.

BAT fell the most, down 40 sen to RM36.12, Nestle lost 30 sen to RM145.10 and Bintulu Port 15 sen to RM4.80.