KUALA LUMPUR: The domestic market found its footing in early Monday trade as it sought to recover from some of the steep losses recorded over the past week.

       In the previous week, the benchmark FBM KLCI fell 30.6 points or 2% as investors were negatively surprised by the government's proposed special tax on high-income companies.

       At 9.05am, the FBM KLCI climbed 4.49 points to 1,536.22 as bargain-hunters picked up oversold counters in view of the longer-term optimism on the market.

       "From a charting standpoint, while the FBMKLCI could still face a bit more weakness ahead in the wake of bearish signals triggered by the DMI and 25-day SMA crossovers as well as the declining momentum indicator, a technical rebound may not

       be too far away following a loss of 74.6 points or 4.6% from a recent closing high of 1,606 on 20 October.

       "That being the case, the benchmark index will probably swing with a marginal downward bias initially – albeit still hovering above our revised immediate support threshold of 1,510 – before staging a mild bounce-up towards our support-turned-resistance hurdle of 1,550 thereafter," said Kenanga Research in its weekly technical outlook.

       The research house noted also that there would be a steady stream of new flow in the coming week including Thursday's MSCI semi-annual index review and Friday's 3Q GDP report.

       On the blue-chip index, there were mild gains among the leading counters including Maybank up one sen to RM8.02, CIMB gaining one sen to RM5.08, Axiata adding three sen to RM3.89, and Petronas Gas climbing 10 sen to RM16.52.

       Top movers on the broader market included Ecomate surging 22.5 sen to 55.5 sen, NWP adding two sen to 34 sen an Tanco unchanged at 27 sen.