At 12.30pm, the benchmark index was up 4.7 points to 1,327.36. Trading volume was 1.59 billion shares valued at RM923.11mil. There were 436 gainers, 233 decliners and 316 counters unchanged.
The positive bounce on the market came at odds with the wider regional sentiment, which had turned bearish as the US warned of the coronavirus resulting in at least 100,000 deaths as it peaks in the coming weeks.
Genting put on six sen to RM3.82 and Genting Malaysia rose three sen to RM2.06 as the counters rose for a third day as investors expect the entertainment plays to recover once the pandemic has passed.
Press Metal also rose nine sen to RM3.15 amid hopes of an improving outlook for commodities.
Bank showed mixed results with Public Bank up 10 sen to RM15.78 and CIMB gaining one sen to RM3.54 while Hong Leong Bank dropped eight sen to RM13.14. Maybank was unchanged at RM7.32.
Top active stocks were Minetech up one sen to 15 sen, Bumi Armada
up 0.5 sen to 14 sen and Velesto gaining one sen to 13 sen.Crude oil futures jumped on Thursday after US President Donald Trump said he expected Saudi Arabia and Russia to reach a deal soon to end their price war while Russian President Vladimir Putin called for a solution to "challenging" oil markets.
WTI crude rose 97 cents to US$21.30 a barrel and Brent crude grew US$1.46 to US$26.20 a barrel.
In currencies, the ringgit was down 0.6% to 4.3770 against the US dollar. It was also 0.6% lower against the pound sterilng at 5.4192 and 0.75% weaker against the Singapore dollar to 3.0510.