KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia’s benchmark stock index travelled sideways over the morning session as investors stayed to the sidelines in the absence of fresh leads.

At 12.30pm, the FBM KLCI was down 1.67 points to 1,442.74 amid a slightly positive market breadth of 449 decliners to 464 gainers.

Trading volume was 2.49 billion shares valued at RM1.43bil.

Tenaga Nasional dragged on the blue-chip index after falling 12 sen to RM9.85 on the back of disappointing quarterly results.

Other decliners included Telekom Malaysia sliding four sen to RM5.02.

Among banking heavyweights, Maybank was down one sen to RM9.01, Public Bank was unchanged at RM4.08, CIMB dipped one sen to RM5.60 and Hong Leong Bank rose four sen to RM19.80.

Hap Seng Consolidated rallied 28 sen to RM3.94.

Meanwhile, on the wider market, YTL Power was seen climbing 14 sen to RM2.02, MAHB jumped 12 sen to RM7.32 and Naim added 11 sen to RM86.5 sen.

Top actives were Ekovest up six sen to 51.5 sen, IW City surging eight sen to 67.5 sen and UEM Sunrise gaining 4.5 sen to 71.5 sen.

In key Asian markets, stocks rallied as China announced new stimulus measures to bolster its ailing economy.

China’s composite index rose 2.3 % to 3,134 while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng gained 1.7% to 18,260.

Japan’s Nikkei climbed 1.6% to 32,143 and South Korea’s Kospi put on 0.7% to 2,536.