Following Tuesday's strong performance, the country's benchmark index had succumbed to profit-taking, seeing all its gains erased over the course of the week.
At 12.30pm, the index was down 6.44 points to 1,573.46, slightly below the 200-day SMA, which has served as a crucial support since the market slumped in early May amid a return of new coronavirus cases.
The local equities market has been under some selling pressure as developments on the local political scene this week sparked some anxiety.
However, investor sentiment has been on the uptrend in global markets, spurred on by a rally on Wall Street as economic data showed manageable inflation levels in the world's biggest economy.
"We reckon the positive sentiment on Wall Street coupled with the climbing vaccination rate in the country should move local stocks higher," said Malacca Securities Research in its daily outlook.
Most counters on the blue-chip index were lower, with the biggest loser being glove makers. Reflecting the recent weakness in the sector, Top Glove fell nine sen to RM4.71 and Hartalega
dropped 18 sen to RM8.24.Bank stocks were also mostly lower led by CIMB sliding four sen to RM4.58, Hong Leong Bank sliding six sen to RM18.78 and Maybank dropping one sen to RM8.17. Public Bank added two sen to RM4.22.
In plantations, Kuala Lumpur Kepong shed 20 sen to RM21.60 after closing slightly higher in the previous session on the back of news of its purchase of a majority stake in IJM Plantations.
IJM Corp was unchanged at RM1.95 after its rally yesterday while IJM Plantations slipped one sen to RM3.05 following a surge in share price.
On the broader market, top actives were Dnex up 3.5 sen to 89 sen, Itronic gaining 3.5 sen to 21.5 sen and Avi rising 4.5 sen to 15.5 sen.
Meanwhile, Asian markets were bullish on the back of the US consumer price data that suggested rising inflation was temporary following the reopening of industries.
Japan's Nikkei was flat and South Korea's Kospi rose 0.7%. China's main index dropped 0.25% although Hong Kong's Hang Seng gained 0.4%.
Australia's ASX200 was up 0.3%.