"Given the foreign funds are still buying into our local equities, we expect the bullish momentum to sustain at least for the near term ahead of the tabling of Budget 2022 next week," said Malacca Securities Research in a note.
At 9.10am, the country's benchmark index was down 2.83 points to 1,603.49. Market breadth was slightly negative with 217 decliners compared to 200 gainers.
Bank counters were seen wobbling as investors took profit following the recent advance. Maybank was down two sne to RM8.29, CIMB dropped six sen to RM5.35, Hong Leong Bank slid six sen to RM18.46 and Public Bank was unchaged at RM4.27.
Commodity plays remained firm as prices remained elevated with crude oil and crude palm oil trading at multi-year highs.
Brent crude oil futures continued a red-hot rally to top US$86 a barrel while crude palm oil futures were seen rising to a fresh record level at RM5,300 a metric tonne.
Petronas Chemicals was up two sen to RM8.82 while plantation play Sime Darby Plantation
rose one sen to RM4,30, IOI gained one sen to RM4.01 and Kuala Lumpur Kepong added two sen to RM22.92.Meanwhile, Tenaga Nasional rose four sen to RM9.80 on positive news over its recent renewable energy acquisition.
In the gloves sector, Supermax faced strong selling pressure as a news portal reported the company was hit with an import ban by US authorities on allegations of forced labour claims.
The stock slumped 22 sen or nearly 10% to an intra-morning low of RM2.03 before bouncing slightly to RM2.06 as at the time of writing.
The share was the second most-heavily traded with 25.89 million units exchanging hands.
Other top actives included CSH up 0.5 sen to 13 sen with 36.2 million shares traded and Bumi Armada
gaining 0.5 sen to 53.5 sen on the back of 20.5 million units exchanging hands.