KUALA LUMPUR: The domestic market rebounded on the back of Wall Street’s strong performance as investors digested news that the US Federal Reserve may start hiking interest rates sooner than expected.
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Overnight, the Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped 1.8%, its best performance since March, as investors turned their attention towards the economic recovery and the likelihood of inflation rates normalising.
At 9.07am, the FBM KLCI was up 4.03 points to 1,576.27, retracing some of the loss from the previous session amid a global slump in equities.
“With the strong rebound overnight on Wall Street, coupled with the gradual subsiding in Covid-19 daily cases, bargain hunting may lift the sentiment on the local bourse.
“Also, we believe market pariticipants should focus on recovery theme stocks given the vaccination rate is improving in Malaysia,” said Malacca Securities Research in its daily outlook.
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Meanwhile, oil prices remained on the uptrend, climbing above US$75 a barrel overnight on the back of a weaker US dollar.
Among the leading gainers, Press Metal retraced the previous day’s losses, rising eight sen to RM4.82, while Digi jumped nine sen to RM4.41 and Axiata gained four sen to RM4.02 on the back of progress in their merger plans.
In the glove sector, Hartalega slid eight sen to RM8.30 while Top Glove added two sen to RM4.69.
Meanwhile, financial stocks were mixed with Maybank rising one sen to RM8.19, Public Bank adding one sen to RM4.19, Hong Leong Bank falling four sen to RM18.82 and CIMB uchanged at RM4.59.
On the broader market, top actives were MMAG down 0.5 sen to 17.5 sen, M3 Technologies up 0.5 sen to 6.5 sen and Greenyield up three sen to 34.5 sen.-The Star