KUALA LUMPUR: The Malaysian equities benchmark rose in morning trade on Tuesday following a better overnight performance across US stock indices.

At 9.30am, FBM KLCI was up 1.09 points to 1,271.97. Across the board, a total of 139 stocks advanced while 70 entities declined as 77.48 million shares worth RM75.82 million were traded.

Top gainer was RALCO-WR which added 17.5 sen to 18 sen while the biggest decliner was MITRA-WB which lost 18.5 sen to 3 sen. AFFIN-WC, the most active stock, rose 1.5 sen to 31.5 sen.

Among regional indices, Australia's ASX 200 fell 0.08% to 4,713.40, South Korea's Kospi dropped 0.43% to 1,612.10, while Japan's Nikkei 225 was down 0.27% to 9,472.07.

Crude oil for January 2010 at the New York Mercantile Exchange fell 15 cents to US$77.41 a barrel, while spot prices for gold dipped US$6.30 to US$1159.80.

The ringgit, meanwhile, strengthened to 5.6048 against the pound sterling, but weakened to 3.3840 versus the US dollar, 3.8083 against the yen and 2.4409 compared to the Singapore dollar.