However, equities trading in Asia was muted as US markets will remain shuttered this evening for a national holiday.
At 12.30pm, the FBM KLCI was down 2.56 points to 1,593.25. Trading volume was 1.38 billion shares valued at RM730.16mil. There were 380 decliners, 332 gainers and 364 counters unchanged.
Most active stocks in the morning session were VC down 0.5 sen to 10 sen, XDL up one sen to 15 sen and Alam Maritim
up 1.5 sen to 18 sen.Pentamaster rose 34 sen to RM5.07 to top the gainers list. It was followed by Vitrox climbing 24 sen to RM9.31 and KESM adding 20 sen to RM10.50.
Plantation plays were among the leading decliners with United Plantation dropping 38 sen to RM25.92, BLD Plantatoin falling 38 sen to RM23.42 and Hap Seng Plantations sliding 10 sen to RM1.83.
Among the heavyweight plantations, KL Kepong was down 10 sen to RM24.30 for its fifth consecutive day of losses. Sime Darby Plantation slipped one sen to RM5.30 and IOI was down four sen to RM4.59.
Telcos were also in the red led by Axiata down nine sen to RM4.51, Maxis slipping seven sen to RM5.63 and Digi losing one sen to RM4.61
Oil prices jumped on news that two production facilities in Lubya was shutting down amid a military blockade. US crude climbed 60 sen to US$59.14 a barrel and Brent crude rose 77 sen to US$65.62 a barrel.
In currencies, the ringgit was down 0.15% to 4.0560 against the US dollar, 0.15% against the pound sterling to 5.2736 and 0.2% against the Singapore dollar to 3.0114.
