by TMR

Malaysia’s KLCI broke two straight weeks of steady declines at midday today on suspected window dressing from fund managers and institutional investors.

At 12.30pm, the composite index rose 30.58 points to 1,696.26 after opening marginally lower at 1,665.04 (down 0.64 points).

The equity market proceeded to trade between a high and low of 1,701.65 and 1,664.69 respectively throughout the day, with 1.15 billion shares traded for RM1.02 billion.

Gainers led losers 444 to 269 with 356 counters unchanged and 845 untraded.

Top gainers were Tenaga Nasional Bhd, Aeon Credit Service (M) Bhd, Top Glove Corp Bhd, Hartalega Holdings Bhd and Carlsberg Brewery (M) Bhd.

Losers included plantation counters United Plantations Bhd and Chin Teck Plantations Bhd and Shangri-La Hotels (M) Bhd.

The KLCI tracked the performance across regional and US markets. Japan’s Nikkei 225 was 15.02 points higher at 22,285.41 and Korea’s KOSPI rose 11.09 points to 2,325.33.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng was up 59.56 points at 3,952.42 and Singapore’s STI was higher at 3,280.25 (up 22.68 points).

In US markets, both the NYSE and Dow Jones Industrial Average was higher at 12,475.98 (up 63.91 points) and 24,216.05 (up 98.46 points) respectively.