A NOT-SO-ROSY picture for glove makers’ prospects put a dent on the market as Top Glove and Hartalega dragged down Bursa Malaysia to end at its intraday low Friday.
At 5pm, the benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) lost 12.91 points to 1,488.88 compared with 1,501.79 at Thursday’s close.
The market bellwether opened 0.14 of-a-point lower at 1,501.65 and hit a high of 1,505.41 earlier.
Market breadth remained weak for the whole day with losers trouncing gainers 596 to 277, while 454 counters were unchanged, 978 untraded, and 52 others suspended.
Turnover decreased to 2.60 billion units valued at RM1.74 bil from Thursday’s 2.73 billion units valued at RM1.59 bil.
Normalised average selling price (ASP) and demand following mass vaccine rollout on a global scale has put a pressure on Top Glove’s earnings for the first quarter of financial year 2022 (1Q FY22).
Earlier today, the company announced a sharp drop in net profit to RM185.72 mil from RM2.36 bil recorded in the same quarter in the previous year.
Revenue shrank to RM1.58 bil from RM4.76 bil previously.
Rakuten Trade Sdn Bhd vice-president of equity research Thong Pak Leng said market sentiment was further weakened by the spillover effect of the regional sell down.
Key equity indices, namely Nikkei, Straits Times Index, Shanghai Composite Index, Hang Seng Index, and Kospi were all in the red in sync with the overnight Wall Street’s bearish performance.
Thong said investors were awaiting the US inflation data to be released Friday which might influence the Federal Reserve’s decision on when to roll back economic stimulus.
“Additionally, some investors opted to book profit particularly in oil and gas and technology stocks amid the weaker oil market and Nasdaq,” he told Bernama.
On the home front, Top Glove fell 10.4% or 25 sen to RM2.16 and Hartalega slid 32 sen to RM5.20.
CIMB and Axiata dipped six sen each to RM5.18 and RM3.78 respectively, while Petronas Gas and Petronas Chemicals eased four sen each to RM16.46 and RM8.42 respectively.
However, Tenaga Nasional remained positive, gaining five sen to RM9.16, and MISC was four sen higher at RM6.56.
Of the actives, Malaysian Genomics gave up 3.5 sen to 78.5 sen, while Kanger International, Sapura Energy and Impiana Hotels were all unchanged at two sen, five sen and nine sen respectively. – Dec 10, 2021
