KUALA LUMPUR (March 10): The FBM KLCI staged a mild rebound in early trade on Tuesday, lifted by bargain hunting on select blue chips.

At 9am, the FBM KLCI added 3.08 points to 1,794.82.

The top gainers included Petronas Gas Bhd, Tenaga Nasional Bhd, MISC Bhd, Carlsberg Brewery (M) Bhd, Guiness Anchor Bhd, Telekom Malaysia Bhd, Petronas Chemicals Group Bhd, Hong Leong Bank Bhd and C.I. Holdings Bhd.

The U.S. dollar held near multi-year highs on the yen and euro on Tuesday amid starkly different outlooks for global interest rates, while Asian investors braced for more economic news from China, according to Reuters.

The dollar was nearing major chart barriers against the yen, having hit a three-month high at 121.46 yen. A break of 121.84 would take it to territory not visited since July 2007, it said.

Hong Leong IB Research in a market preview Tuesday said Bursa Malaysia may witness a mild rebound today amid overnight Dow’s rise and a Hammer candlestick formation on the FBM KLCI’s daily chart yesterday.

“Unless KLCI can reclaim strongly above uptrend line support near 1814 (10-d SMA), we may see the index to extend its consolidations towards 1780 levels,” it said.

The research house said that in the near term, many investors are likely to refrain from making big bets amid nagging concerns over further earnings disappointment in 2015, fears of earlier-than-expected U.S. Fed rates hike, 1MDB huge debt saga, volatile oil prices, Ringgit weakness (hit a new 52-week low at RM3.678/US$), GST risks and possible sovereign rating downgrade by Fitch.