KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia's key stock index climbed in the morning session in anticipation of a pick-up in corporate results being released this week, while Beijing slashed interest rates by a larger-than-expected margin in an effort to revive economic growth.
At 12.30pm, the benchmark FBM KLCI was up 8.04 points to 1,546.65 although the broader market maintained a negative breadth of 467 decliners to 406 gainers.
Trading volume over the morning session was RM2.05bil changing hands for RM1.19bil.
In China, markets were not as impressed by the government's latest initiative.
Despite the 25bps cut to the five-year loan prime rate, China's stock market remained flattish, suggesting that more stimulus measures were needed to regain investor confidence.
The Shanghai Composite Index was marginally higher at 2,911 while the blue-chip CSI300 was down 0.2% to 3,397.
Hong Kong's Hang Seng dipped 0.3% to 16,111.
Elsewhere, Japan's Nikkei dropped 0.2% to 38,392 while South Korea's Kospi lost 1.2% to 2,648.
Back home, investors were keenly awaiting the release of a raft of corporate results this week.
Leading gainers included Sime Darby up eight sen to RM2.59, YTL Power rising 12 sen to RM3.92, PETRONAS Chemicals gaining 13 sen to RM6.97 and IOI adding seven sen to RM4.05.
Bank stocks were also up, led by CIMB gaining four sen to RM6.44, AMMB adding four sen to RM4.42, Maybank rising two sen to RM9.48 and RHB adding two sen to RM5.65.
Top actives on the market included Hong Seng up 0.5 se to 2.5 sen, TWL unchanged at 3.5 sen and Dialog surging 26 sen to RM2.12.
