KUALA LUMPUR: The FBM KLCI continued to rise on Tuesday as the market sentiment continued to improve amid declining daily Covid-19 infections and optimism over renewed political stability in the country.

       Meanwhile, the positive performance on Wall Street overnight gave global equities a boost. The Nasdaq was seen rallying over 1.5% overnight on the back of pharma plays as the FDA gave its full approval to the Pfizer-BioNtech Covid vaccine.

       At 9.05am, the key index was up 2.15 points to 1,524.58, building on the recent positive momentum after two straight days of gains.

       Gains on the blue-chip index were slight with most stocks staying close to their reference price.

       Early gainers included Tenaga Nasional up one sen to RM9.88, Press Metal gaining four sen to RM4.99 and CIMB rising one sen to RM4.69.

       Petronas Dagangan was seen climbing 38 sen to RM19.18 on the back of its recent earnings result.

       In semiconductor stocks, MPI was up 66 sen to RM44.80, Vitrox rose 30 sen to RM19.48 and Gentec added 18 sen to RM24.24.

       Top actives were Dnonce up 0.5 sen to 61 sen, MMAG gaining 0.5 sen to 13 sen and Avillion falling 1.5 sen to 14.5 sen.