KUALA LUMPUR: Bursa Malaysia defied expectations in early trading by staying on a hot rally despite a stumble in US markets.

       Overnight, the Dow Jones slipped on the back of a bag of mixed earnings although the S&P500 and Nasdaq were seen continuing their ascent.

       Analysts said the pause in global stocks could pave the way for profit-taking in Malaysia's own stock market, which has risen for the three past sessions.

       However, the benchmark FBM KLCI made a good start on Wednesday, rising 1.05 points to 1,497.16 on the back of a broad-based rally.

       CIMB rose three sen to RM6.05, Public Bank gained one sen to RM4.36, and RHB was up one sne to RM5.61.

       MISC climbed five sen to RM7.39, Sime Darby Plantation rose six sen to RM4.43 and YTL Power rose eight sen to RM3.83.

       Apex Securities Research said in a note it believes there could be upside for lower liners given the improved sentiment over the certain stocks that were the target of huge selling but have recently halted their decline.

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       At the time of writing, the broader market was trading with 193 gainers to 132 decliners and 246 unchanged, suggesting a positive breadth over the coming day.

       The top traded counters were Widad up 1.5 sen to 20 sen, Handal rising one sen to 12 sen and YNH Property gaining 4.5 sen to 65.5 sen.

       Nevertheless, the investor attention will be on the Bank Negara monetary policy decision, scheduled for later this afternoon, as well as the release of the US gross domestic product data later this week.

       "We expect BNM to stay pat onto OPR as economic fundamentals remain intact," said Apex as it reiterated its view that the central bank will hold the lending rate steady at 3%.