Top 50 gainers in percentage terms

Winning bets: Aside from technology and consumer stocks, a number of rubber glove companies also made it to the Top 50 gainers. — AP

Technology-related stocks are the clear winners when it comes to Bursa Malaysia’s Top 50 gainers’ list in percentage terms, with four out of the top five positions clinched by such counters.

Precision machine components manufacturer Dufu Technology Corp Bhd made the biggest gain by almost 247% in the May 8-Nov 30 period, lifting its market capitalisation to RM644.85mil.

Dufu, which also appears among Bursa Malaysia’s top 50 absolute market capitalisation gainers, saw its share price rising from 71 sen to RM2.45 in just less than seven months. The company completed its bonus issue of up to 87,735,185 new ordinary shares on the basis of one bonus share for every two existing shares on Nov 30.

Supercomnet Technologies Bhd, which makes high-tech wires and cables, is the second top gainer, with its share price surging by 104.4% from 34 sen to 70 sen. The ACE Market-listed stock has a market value of RM446.89mil.

Semiconductor players Frontken Corp Bhd and Unisem (M) Bhd are ranked third and fifth in the list, with their share prices rising by 102.5% and 78% respectively.

Other technology-related stocks that are ranked high in the list include Pentamaster Corp Bhd, Vitrox Corp Bhd and Malaysian Pacific Industries Bhd (MPI).

Pentamaster rose by almost 48% to RM3.06, Vitrox was up by over 32% to RM7 and MPI increased by 29% RM10 on Nov 30.

Guan Chong Bhd is the only non-technology stock in the top five positions. The shares of the cocoa processing company was up by 88.4%, driven by strong earnings delivery led by improvement in margin.

In the third quarter ended Sept 30, Guan Chong’s bottom line rose by almost 48% year-on-year to RM43.87mil, on the back of a 10.3%-higher revenue of RM598.78mil. The company is in the midst of expanding its production capacity that would place it among the world’s top-four largest cocoa processors.

British American Tobacco (M) Bhd’s shares were up by about 66% from RM22.70 to RM37.70 in the May 8-Nov 30 period, putting it among the top gainers. As a result of its multi-year downtrend since 2014, the stock exited the RM10bil market cap club in Jan 2018.

However, the cigarette manufacturer’s significant share price appreciation post-14th general election (GE14), has helped to raise its market value back to above the RM10bil mark.

Aside from technology and consumer stocks, a number of rubber glove players are also among the top 50 gainers on Bursa Malaysia.

Among the local listed glovemakers, Kossan Rubber Industries Bhd gained the most in the post-GE14 period, up by 28.4% to RM4.30.

For context, the company undertook a subdivision of shares in July this year, with every one ordinary share of Kossan divided into two units. The rationale was to make the subdivided shares more affordable and potentially appealing to greater number of investors.

Meanwhile, Comfort Gloves Bhd’s shares were up 22.4% at 96 sen.

The company suffered a blow on March 15, after its wholly-owned subsidiary, Comfort Rubber Gloves Industries Sdn Bhd, was listed under the US Food and Drug Administration’s (FD) import alert list.

From a high of RM1.11 on March 27, the stock had fallen to 69.3 sen on April 5. However, after eight months later on Nov 27, Comfort Gloves announced that its subsidiary has been removed from the FDA’s alert list.

The other rubber glove stocks on the top 50 gainers’ list are Top Glove Corp Bhd and Supermax Corp Bhd, which were up by 21.6% and 17.9% respectively.

Top Glove undertook a one-for-one bonus share issue in Oct 2018, which entailed the issuance of up to 1.28 billion new ordinary shares.

Only two banking stocks made to the Top 50 gainers in percentage terms’ list.

At the rank of 37, AMMB Holdings Bhd’s share price increased by 14.5%, from RM3.72 per share to RM4.26. AMMB is the holding company of AmBank Group and is the sixth-largest banking group by assets in Malaysia

Earlier in December, the bank was added as one of the new FBM KLCI component stock, together with Top Glove. These two counters replaced Telekom Malaysia Bhd and KLCC Property Holdings Bhd that were booted out of the 30-stock index.

The other banking stocks in the Top 50 gainers’ list is Hong Leong Bank Bhd, which was up by 9.5% at RM20.38 per share.

Ranked at 49th position, the bank aims to achieve a stronger bottom line in its current financial year of 2019, following its record net profit of RM2.64bil in the previous financial year. Similar to AMMB, Hong Leong Bank is also part of the FBM KLCI.