KUALA LUMPUR: After a last minute surge in buying interest snapped a three-day losing streak on the FBM KLCI yesterday, investor sentiment is expected to be further boosted by the strong overnight performance of US equities overnight, said Malacca Securities Research.

       "Given the strong boost on Wall Street, we believe the overall market conditions could perform better on the local front," the research firm said in a note.

       Wall Street ended mostly higher due to stronger sentiment boosted by the cooling PCE data, coupled with stronger corporate earnings

       The Dow Jones surged 1.5% or over 500 points to 35,950, while the S&P500 gained 0.4% to 4,567.

       The Nasdaq was 0.2% to 14,226 amid bargain-hunting activities as investors took profit out of the big-cap technology counters that carried the sector over the month.

       Moving forward, Malacca Securities expects Malaysian bourse investors to re-assess the quarterly results and position for window-dressing activities.

       At the open, the FBM KLCI was down 0.74 points to 1,452 as investors digested gains from the previous session.

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       There was some profit-taking in PETRONAS Chemicals down 14 sen to RM7.08, CelcomDigi sliding 12 sen to RM4.22 an Kuala Lumpur Kepong falling 50 sen to RM21.38.

       Nestle also retreated RM3.10 to RM122.30.

       However, gains in bank stocks offset some of the index losses. CIMB jumped 14 sen to RM5.79 after releasing its quarterly results yesterday while Maybank rose four sen to RM9.02, Public Bank added three sen to RM4.30 and Abank gained eight sen to RM4.04.

       On the broader market, top actives were Zentech up 0.5 sen to 2.5 sen, SCIB sliding 3.5 sne to 73.5 sen and ARB losing one sen to 8.5 sen.