All 4 big glove stocks offer plenty of upside: Kenanga

In its strategy note on Monday, Kenanga Research retained its outperform call on Top Glove with a target price of RM8.50, Hartalega RM21, Kossan RM7.50 and Supermax RM9.05.

KUALA LUMPUR: Kenanga Investment Bank Research is retaining its outperform calls on the top four glove makers – Top Glove, Hartalega, Kossan and Supermax -- as fundamentally, they offer plenty of upside.

In its strategy note on Monday, it retained its outperform call on Top Glove with a target price of RM8.50, Hartalega RM21, Kossan RM7.50 and Supermax RM9.05.

It said with regulated short selling (RSS) finally allowed effective Jan 1, the first week of trading in 2021 saw the biggest short-selling volumes in the large rubber gloves stocks.

All four largest glove makers ended at week’s highs, which must be bruising for profit-motivated short sellers.

“Statistics from Bursa Malaysia however, do not reveal the breakdown of hedgers, arbitrageurs and profit seekers amongst the short sellers.

“Long-only investors in Top Glove may be relieved to know that with Top Glove’s latest net short position of 2.34% (of issued shares), it leaves just three to four more days of shorting before hitting the newly imposed 4% ceiling cap assuming average daily volumes done last week, ” it said.

Last Friday, foreign funds turned net buyers at RM435.5mil due to short covering activities for stocks, especially glove makers, which they had short sold on Monday. Local institutions were net seller at RM428.9mil and local retail investors at RM6.6mil.

Over last week, foreign funds were net sellers at RM337mil and local institutions also net sellers at RM362.7mil but again the selling was well absorbed by local retail investors at RM699.7mil.