KUALA LUMPUR: The government's move to ease restrictions for those who are fully vaccinated helped to lift the market sentiment on Monday.

       Over the weekend, the Prime Minister announced a list of relaxed standard operating procedures for those who received both doses of the Covid vaccine, effective Aug 10.

       At 12.30pm, the FBM KLCI was up 5.18 points to 1,494.98.

       Kenanga Research however projects further technical weakness ahead given the falling momentum.

       "Despite the emergence of sporadic buying support last week, the prevalence of negative technical signals as illustrated by the parabolic downtrend pattern and declining momentum indicator suggests that the benchmark index will probably pull back deeper, possibly testing our first support threshold of 1,475 (S1, a level where the key market bellwether had previously bounced off thrice between end-June and early November last year).

       "Our next support line for the FBMKLCI stands at 1,440 (S2) while the immediate resistance barrier to block any intermittent technical rebound is pegged at 1,510 (R1)," it said in its weekly technical outlook.

       The market breadth on Bursa Malaysia was almost level with 435 gainers to 434 decliners.

       In the financial sector, Maybank bounced higher three sen to RM8.01 while Pubic Bank added two sen to RM3.96. Hong Leong Bank however slipped six sen to RM18.20 while CIMB fell four sen to RM4.51.

       Tenaga Nasional was up five sen to RM9.66, and IHH climbed five sen to RM5.79.

       MAHB picked up 25 sen to RM6.08 and Genting rose 15 sen to RM4.70.

       Beverage makers saw an increase in buying interest led by Heineken up 54 sen to RM22.54, Carlsberg rising 44 sen to RM21.54 and F&N gaining 32 sn eot RM25.92.

       Of actives, DNeX lost 0.5 sen to 82 sen, Avi gained 1.5 sen to 15.5 sen and Kejuruteraan Asastera dipped one sen to 54.5 sen.

       In Asian markets, equities rebounded after diving earlier in the day as oil prices fell amid the spread of the Delta variant of the Covid virus.

       South Korea's Kospi gained 0.2% while Japan's markets were closed for a national holiday. China's main index and Hong Kong's Hang Seng gained 1% each. Australia's ASX200 was flat.