Bursa Malaysia opened on a rebound in morning trade with the main index returning to the 1,600 level after taking cues from Wall Street's overnight performance following lower-than-expected weekly jobless claims data.
At 2.40pm, the FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI was at 1,599.34, up 8.96 points (0.56%) from where it closed at 1,590.38 on Thursday.
The index opened 10.78 points higher at 1,601.16.
Broad market sentiment was positive with gainers outnumbering losers at 551 to 59. Meanwhile, 168 counters were unchanged, 1,664 were untraded and 22 were suspended.
The total turnover was 264.19 million units worth RM137.57 million.
Rakuten Trade Sdn Bhd's Vice President of Equity Research, Thong Pak Leng said attention will now shift to the US Consumer Price Index (CPI) data next Wednesday.
Although Wall Street posted gains, local stock market sentiment will remain cautious towards the end of the week.
He expects the index to hover in the 1,590 to 1,600 range today.
Meanwhile, heavyweights such as Maybank and Tenaga Nasional rose four sen to RM10.18 and RM14.04, respectively, Public Bank added two sen to RM4.24, CIMB rose six sen to RM7.36 and IHH Healthcare did not change at RM6.19.
Active counters also saw uptrend results with Cape EMS and KGW strengthening two sen to 49.5 sen and 27 sen respectively. ATA IMS rose five sen to 43.5 sen, Nova MSC gained 1.5 sen to 20 sen and Siab Holdings was one sen better to 14.5 sen.
