At 12.30pm, the FBM KLCI was 2.39 points lower at 1,559.45, marking a strong recovery after falling over 14 points just 30 minutes into the start of trading. Trading volume reached 4.88 billion shares valued at RM3.12bil.
The negative performance was in line with other regional markets. In Southeast Asia, only Singapore's Straits Times Index and Thailand's Stock Exchange Index were positive with gains of 0.5% apiece.
Malaysian bank stocks were seen losing momentum after two days of gains as unemployment data from the US shook nerves over the strength of the economic recovery.
Maybank dropped 16 sen to RM8.03, Public Bank lost 12 sen to RM17.38, Hong Leong Bank shed 16 sen to RM15.12 and CIMB dipped two sen to RM3.94.
Amid more losers than gainers on the index, it was glove makers that saved the day yet again. Top Glove was en route to another record close, jumping RM1.20 to RM16.64 while Hartalega added 38 sen to RM12.16.
Of active stocks on Bursa Malaysia, ACO surged eight sen to 34.5 sen, Hibiscus jumped 3.5 sen to 69.5 sen and Advance Synergy
climbed four sen to 17.5 sen.Meanwhile, the wait for a decision over an extension to supply cuts by major oil producers is set to continue as the earliest time for a meeting between Opec and its allies will be this weekend.
However, the anticipation grew positive as Brent crude reached 20 cents higher to US$40.19 a barrel while US crude gained eight cents to US$37.49 a barrel.
On the forex market, the ringgit was up 0.3% against the greenback to 4.2640 as the world's benchmark retreated amid investors exchanging the safe haven for riskier assets.
The local currency was down 0.5% against the pound sterling to 5.3785 and 0.3% against the Singapore dollar to 3.0596.