This comes following a mixed session on Wall Street last night, where a fall in tech stocks sent the Nasdaq 1% lower, offseting gains in financial counters on the back of positive earnings results.
At 9.03am, the key index was up 1.06 points to 1,599.34, building on the late-hour buying in yesterday's trading, which led to a mild advance.
The market continues to meander near the psychological 1,600-point level, having succumbed to profit-taking earlier in the week and with investors looking ahead for fresh leads.
Recent increases in the number of Covid-19 infections in the country, which have been outpacing the rate of patient recovery, is weighing on sentiment.
"Despite that, the surge in crude oil prices amid the optmism over returning demand after the Covid-19 lockdowns may provide some alleviation, particularly to the oil and gas players," said Malacca Securities Research in its morning report.
Among early gainers on the market, Dataprep surged 25 sne to RM1.30 while Transocean climbed 2 sen to RM1.11.
Energy counters seeing price increases included Petron Malaysia
up seven sen to RM4.77 and Hengyuan adding seven sen to RM5.54.Top actives included UCrest rising one sen to 31.5 sen, Widad gaining two sen to 55.5 sen and Minda adding one sen to 16 sen.