KUALA LUMPUR (Dec 17): The FBM KLCI staged a mild rebound and rose 0.96% at mid-morning on Wednesday as bargain hunting lifted the local index while regional markets stayed tentative.

At 10am, the FBM KLCI rose 16.23 points to 1,690.17. It had earlier dipped to a low of 1,671.82.

The top gainers at mid-morning included British American Tobacco (M) Bhd, United Plantations Bhd, Petronas Dagangan Bhd, Coastal Contracts Bhd, Aeon Credit Services (M) Bhd, P.I.E. Industrial Bhd, Petronas Chemicals Group Bhd, Uzma Bhd and CIMB Group Holdings Bhd.

Sumatec Resources Bhd was the most actively traded counter with 43.58 million shares done. The stock jumped 16.67% or three sen to 21 sen.

The other actives included Bumi Armada Bhd, Perisai Petroleum Teknologi Bhd, Hubline Bhd, SapuraKencana Petroleum Bhd and Daya Materials Bhd.

The decliners included Dutch Lady Milk Industries Bhd, Nestle (M) Bhd, Asia File Corporation Bhd,Carlsberh Brewery (M) Bhd, Malaysia Smelting Corp Bhd and Gas Malaysia Bhd.

An uneasy calm settled on Asian markets on Wednesday as a brewing financial crisis in Russia and the rout in oil prices sent investors scurrying for the cover of top-rated bonds, according to Reuters.

Yields on British, German and Japan sovereign debt had all hit record lows while long-dated U.S. yields reached their lowest since late 2012, it said.

AffinHwang Capital Research said the FBM KLCI had dipped into an anticipated strong support level around 1690-1670 points, which had previously proven to be the anchor zone during major pullback in August 2013.

The research house said following this anchor zone was a “bargain hunting” zone which anticipated to be in the range between 1660-1600, where “irrational sellings” will meet with rational contrarians, smart and well informed investors.

“Trading ideas: Given the possibility of reaching a strong support level, stabilizing Ringgit at around RM3.50 against the US dollar and current deep oversold level of overeall stocks in Bursa Malaysia, we opine that short term downside risk has reduced significantly hence a sharp technical rebound is in the offing.

“In addition, for medium to long term investors, bargain huntings anticipated to be the talking points from this week onward.

“Risk: Downward trend still intact, both for short and medium term, and no reversal signal appear yet, thus downward bias remains,” it said.