BANGKOK, Feb 23 — Most Southeast Asian stock markets eked out small gains today, with Singapore's key index hitting a near six-week high after inflation data for January but Indonesia benchmark retreated amid foreign-led selling in banking shares.

Singapore's Straits Times Index traded up 0.5 per cent at 2,674.64, touching 2,717.36 at one point, its highest since Jan 13.

Data showed the city-state's core inflation gauge rose 0.4 per cent in January from a year earlier, the fastest pace in four months.

Shares of DBS Group Holding, the most actively traded, gained 0.7 per cent reflecting a better-than-expected quarterly profit released yesterday.

Jakarta composite index shed 0.7 per cent, led down by a 3.4 per cent drop in shares of Bank Rakyat Indonesia as concerns about loan growth outlook of the banking sector lingered.

In Bangkok, the SET index was up 0.6 per cent at midday, hovering around the highest since Dec 4, extending the gains last week when a rise in crude prices lifted sentiment of risk assets.

“Market gains today might be limited by investors' concerns about the Chinese economy, renewed possibility of Fed raising rates this year and whether oil prices really bottomed,” said strategists at broker Asia Wealth Securities in a report.

Malaysia's key index, which trimmed some of its early gains, saw the gauge hitting the highest since Jan 4.

Stocks in the Philippines rebounded from the weakness yesterday while Vietnam advanced 0.8 per cent, led by banks.

Asian shares, as measured by MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was down 0.2 per cent from a seven-week high as the oil price rally that boosted global equity markets reversed. — Reuters