KUALA LUMPUR (Aug 17): The FBM KLCI rose 6.54 points or 0.37% as world markets cheered the planned China-US trade talks this month. In Malaysia, a dealer's representative said the KLCI had also risen possibly on bargain hunting.

At 12:30pm, the KLCI settled at 1,783.81 points. Frank Lin, a dealer's representative at Hong Leong Investment Bank Bhd, told theedgemarkets.com that the positive performance is possibly due to bargain hunting.

"It's time for the KLCI to rebound a little bit. Our market should roughly be at 1,800 points, which we had reached last week," said Lin.

The KLCI rose as Asian shares tracked overnight US equity gains ahead of the planned China-US trade talks this month. Such sentiment led to easing trade war jitters.

Reuters reported that Asian shares won a modest reprieve on Friday after China and the United States agreed to hold their first trade talks since June next week and as the Turkish lira extended gains from its record low earlier this week. It was reported that MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was up 0.4%, a day after it hit its lowest level in a year. Japan's Nikkei advanced 0.5%.

It was reported that in US markets on Thursday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 1.58% and the S&P 500 gained 0.79%.