At 12.30pm, the FBM KLCI was 3.28 points higher at 1,579.12. Trading activity however remained elevated with 9.1 billion shares traded for a value of RM3.69bil.
Banks picked up slightly after their decline yesterday with Maybank rising three sen to RM7.96, Public Bank up one sne to RM4.12 and CIMB climbing five sne to RM4.18. Hong Leong Bank however was down 26 sen to RM17.86.
Glove counters were also down with Top Glove losing four sen to RM6.03, Hartalega
shedding 20 sen to RM12.28 and Supermax sliding 16 sen to RM5.84.On the broader market, oil and gas counters lost steam as Brent crude prices retreated below the US$65 a barrel mark. Hengyuan Refining
dropped 21 sen to RM6.10, Petron Malaysia lost 13 sen to RM5.14 and Petra Energy fell seven sen to RM1.13.Consumer counters saw buying interest with Carlsberg adding 44 sne to RM22.94 after the previous day's earnings results. Nestle rose 20 sen to RM3.93.
MR DIY also made a 20 sen jump to RM3.93, building on the positive momentum seen yesterday.
OF actives, Dagang Nexchange
fell three sne to 74 sen, MPay jumped 5.5 sen to 26.5 sen and EA Holdings rose 0.5 sen to 4.5 sen.In Asia, markets retreated on tehb ack of longer-dated bonded yields and weak US economic data.
Japan's Nikkei fell 1.1% and South Korea's Kospi dropped 0.5%.
China's composite index declined 0.3% while Hong Kong's Hang Seng slid 0.85%.
Australia's ASX200 was down 1.2%.