KUALA LUMPUR, July 24 — A tiger with money. Glove. Mutual fund.
Those are what Maybank, TopGlove and Public Bank are closely associated with, being Malaysia’s biggest companies in terms of market capitalisation as of today.
Maybank, the country’s biggest bank with a market capitalisation of RM88.6 billion has always been on top of the reign with a composite index (CI) weightage of 11.15 points, followed by another finance player Public Bank with a CI weight of 8.76 points.
Public Bank, best known for its mutual funds has a market capitalisation of RM69.5 billion as of yesterday.
However, the “arrival” of Covid-19 pandemic has shaken things up. TopGlove, once at the bottom rung of the FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI), has now unseated Public Bank to become the second biggest market-capitalisation company in Bursa Malaysia.
According to Bloomberg, the glovemaker now has a market capitalisation of RM70.45 billion, with a CI weightage of 8.87 points; with a 52-week average of RM4.21-RM26.30.
Top Glove, the world’s largest glovemaker has surged more than 450 per cent year-to-date (YTD) backed by exponential demand from countries throughout the globe, worried by the rapid rise in Covid-19 infections.
This is despite the US Customs placing the company’s subsidiaries, Top Glove Sdn Bhd and TG Medical Sdn Bhd on its Withhold Release Order list.
While the glove counters have seen an extraordinary upswing in its share prices, counters belonging to finance have remained under pressure due to higher inflation as well as a rise in unemployment, which would lead to a higher non-performing loan scenario.
However, it is important to note that banks have strong fundamentals and buffers to protect the sector from additional stress due to Covid-19.
According to Bank Negara Malaysia, Malaysian banks are in a better position compared with during the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis and Global Financial Crisis in 2008-2009.
As at 10.09am today, TopGlove was down 20 sen to RM25.92 with a volume of 7.68 million due to profit-taking activities after making a gain of RM1.42 in yesterday’s session.
Meanwhile, Maybank shed four sen to RM7.84 with 424,440 shares transacted while Public Bank slumped 20 sen to RM17.72 with 856,500 shares changing hands. — Bernama
