KUALA LUMPUR: Shares on Bursa Malaysia recovered most of their losses from earlier in the day after a steep plunge in the first half hour of trading.

       At 12.30pm, the FBKLI was down 2.73 points to 1,538.42, with MISC being the biggest laggard.

       The maritime shipping group shaved 36 sen off its share price to RM7.01, a second day of sharp losses, on the back of weak earnings announced yesterday.

       Bank counters were little changed ahead of their upcoming earnings results with CIMB rising one sen to RM5.02, Hong Leong Bank gaining two sen to RM21 and Public Bank unchanged at RM4.60.

       Maybank, which announced a weaker performance yesterday, lost one sen to RM8.97.

       Other notable laggards included Nestle down 70 sen to RM133.70 and Genting falling 17 sen to RM4.71

       Meanwhile, Petronas Chemicals was up 15 sen to RM10.02.

       The most active counters for the morning were Cnergenz down 2.5 sen to 65 sen, Sapura Energy rising one sen to 8.5 sen and Ta Win losing 0.5 sen to 12 sen.

       Major Asian markets tracked Wall Street's overnight rally, with the relief rebound ending a three-day slide on Japan's equities market.

       The benchmark Nikkei rose 0.7%, South Korea's Kospi climbed 1% and China's composite index gained 0.5%.

       Hong Kong's Hang Seng surged 2.8% after Alibaba's share price soared on expectation-beating earnings.

       Australia's ASX200 gained 1.1% on the back of record retail sales data.