KUALA LUMPUR (Oct 7): Oil and gas counters continued to rise this morning in line with crude oil futures which rose further in thin Asian trade.

Petronas Dagangan Bhd continued its uptrend and was the biggest gainer in early trades. It climbed as much as 80 sen to RM23.16 before cutting down some of its gains. As at 11.20am, the counter was up 74 sen at RM23.10, with 181,700 shares traded.

Other oil and gas stocks that were among the top 10 gainers included Uzma Bhd, which gained 18 sen at RM2.23; UMW Oil & Gas Corporation Bhd, which advanced 10 sen to RM1.23; and Deleum Bhd, up 10 sen at RM1.32.

KNM Group Bhd was the second most actively traded stock; it rallied 5% to 50 sen, with 43.7 million shares done.

In a note to theedgemarkets.com, BIMB Securities Sdn Bhd analyst Tan Jian Yuan reckoned that near-term market momentum is sustainable due to the some window dressing activities.

"However, I reckon that sector sentiment is still weak at this point in time, with not much improvement in broad-base sector fundamental," Tan said.

On oil and gas market outlook, the research house does not foresee any major improvement.

"Sector is still weighed down by slower global economic growth, strengthening in USD, low commodity prices and poor corporate results. We saw of late there are a few subcontract RAPID works being awarded to local players. We believe rollout of contracts might slowly kick start after the operators have now relooked and rationalised their costing to the low oil price environment," said Tan.

(Note: The Edge Research's fundamental score reflects a company’s profitability and balance sheet strength, calculated based on historical numbers. The valuation score determines if a stock is attractively valued or not, also based on historical numbers. A score of 3 suggests strong fundamentals and attractive valuations.)