KUALA LUMPUR: Bursa Malaysia tracked Wall Street's overnight surge as investors rallied on the US Federal Reserve's quarter-percentage point rate hike.

       While widely expected, the 25bps increase dispelled fears that the central bank would raise rates in larger increments of 50bps or even 75bps to cool an overheating economy.

       However, analysts say the plan to raise interest rates by six more times this year and continue raising borrowing costs next year is more aggressive than had been expected.

       At 9.05am, the FBM KLCI was up 9.01 points to 1,580.33 as blue chips moved broadly higher amid the improved sentiment.

       Market breadth meanwhile was overwhelmingly positive with 311 gainers compared to 61 decliners.

       Among banks, Maybank rose six sen to RM8.96, Public Bank added four sen to RM4.56 and CIMB climved five sen to RM5.35.

       Meanwhile, Brent crude rebounded to US$99.11 a barrel after slumping for a third straight session overnight to US$98.02 a barrel.

       Petronas Chemicals rose 12 sen to RM9.43 and Petronas Gas climbed 32 sen to RM17.22.

       In technology counters MPI added RM1.76 to RM33.32, Vitrox gained 27 sen to RM6.74 and D&O rose 17 sne to RM4.28.

       Most actives were DNeX up two sen to RM1.02, ATA IMS down 0.5 sen to 39 sen and NWP unchanged at 26.5 sen.