by TMR

Bursa Malaysia’s KLCI continued to recover in midday trading today, coming off an overnight beating as trade rhetoric shifted back towards resolution while investors bought on dips in the market.

At 12.30 pm, the index was 18.62 points higher at 1,834.56, reversing some of the losses noted when it closed 34.84 points lower at 1,815.94 yesterday.

The market opened higher by 8.52 points at 1,824.46 and continued to climb early in the day, trading between a high and low of 1,838.81 and 1,824.42 respectively.

A total of 1.29 billion shares were traded for RM898.59 million during the day, with gainers leading losers 614 to 289 and 339 counters unchanged with 629 untraded.

Top gainers were Hong Leong Financial Group Bhd, Dutch Lady Milk Industries Bhd, KESM Industries Bhd, Heineken Malaysia Bhd and Hong Leong Bank Bhd.

Losers for the day included British American Tobacco (Malaysia) Bhd, PPB Group Bhd and Fraser & Neave Holdings Bhd.

Asian markets were also generally higher for the day after the US announced their willingness to negotiate a resolution to the escalating trade rift with China.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 was up by 404.84 points at 21,724.39 while Korea’s KOSPI was higher by 37.81 points at 2,445.87 and Singapore’s STI higher by 61.09 points at 3,400.79.

However, both Hong Kong’s Hang Seng and Shanghai’s stock exchange were lower at 4,100.17 (down 74.11 points) and 3,131.111 (down 5.522 points).

US markets were higher with the Dow Jones Industrial Average up 230.94 points at 24,264.30 and the S&P 500 up 30.24 points at 2,644.69.