Thanks to meteoric gains in glove-maker stocks, Malaysia’s equity market capitalization is close to surpassing that of its richer neighbor Singapore.
Malaysia’s market value has surged 41 percent since a March low to hit US$379 billion as the COVID-19 pandemic supercharged demand for medical gloves and shares of the manufacturers.
That puts Malaysia about US$4 billion away from surpassing Singapore’s market capitalization for the first time in more than 16 years, according to data compiled by Bloomberg, which only include actively traded primary listings.
“This is a reflection of the relative fortunes of the two economies and this divergence may continue for a while,” said Nirgunan Tiruchelvam, head of consumer equity research at Tellimer who has been tracking the region’s markets for decades.
“Malaysia has integrated manufacturing industries like glove makers,” while Singapore’s economy is based on finance and property, he added.
The pandemic has sparked a reshuffle in Asia’s largest stocks, with the likes of technology and healthcare companies growing bigger than ever.
While Singapore’s market lost US$113 billion this year as it grapples with a slump in global trade, Malaysia’s capitalization recovered due to huge gains in glove shares.
In fact, Top Glove Corp on Thursday unseated Public Bank Bhd to become the second-most valuable stock on Malaysia’s equity benchmark, after the former’s stock surged more than 440 percent.
Another glove producer, Supermax Corp, has leaped more than 1,100 percent this year.
The scorching rally in the sector has reversed the fortunes of what was last year’s worst-performing stock market in Asia.
The FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI index is the only benchmark stock gauge in Southeast Asia to have briefly erased losses made this year. It is little changed year to date.
The glove maker rally has also fueled fevered trading in the country’s equity market, with the number of shares changing hands reaching a record high this week.
Domestic buyers have dominated the market during the course of the year, with net outflows by foreign investors totaling US$4.2 billion.
Malaysia, whose GDP was US$365 billion at the end of last year, has been supported by the booming global demand for gloves and its bigger pool of domestic consumers.
Meanwhile, Singapore’s US$372 billion economy is heavily linked to trade and tourism. It has one of the highest number of virus cases in Southeast Asia.
CAUTIOUS RECOVERY: While the manufacturing sector returned to growth amid the US-China trade truce, firms remain wary as uncertainty clouds the outlook, the CIER said The local manufacturing sector returned to expansion last month, as the official purchasing managers’ index (PMI) rose 2.1 points to 51.0, driven by a temporary easing in US-China trade tensions, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. The PMI gauges the health of the manufacturing industry, with readings above 50 indicating expansion and those below 50 signaling contraction. “Firms are not as pessimistic as they were in April, but they remain far from optimistic,” CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) said at a news conference. The full impact of US tariff decisions is unlikely to become clear until later this month
With an approval rating of just two percent, Peruvian President Dina Boluarte might be the world’s most unpopular leader, according to pollsters. Protests greeted her rise to power 29 months ago, and have marked her entire term — joined by assorted scandals, investigations, controversies and a surge in gang violence. The 63-year-old is the target of a dozen probes, including for her alleged failure to declare gifts of luxury jewels and watches, a scandal inevitably dubbed “Rolexgate.” She is also under the microscope for a two-week undeclared absence for nose surgery — which she insists was medical, not cosmetic — and is
GROWING CONCERN: Some senior Trump administration officials opposed the UAE expansion over fears that another TSMC project could jeopardize its US investment Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is evaluating building an advanced production facility in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and has discussed the possibility with officials in US President Donald Trump’s administration, people familiar with the matter said, in a potentially major bet on the Middle East that would only come to fruition with Washington’s approval. The company has had multiple meetings in the past few months with US Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff and officials from MGX, an influential investment vehicle overseen by the UAE president’s brother, the people said. The conversations are a continuation of talks that
Alchip Technologies Ltd (世芯), an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) designer specializing in artificial-intelligence (AI) chips, yesterday said that small-volume production of 3-nanometer (nm) chips for a key customer is on track to start by the end of this year, dismissing speculation about delays in producing advanced chips. As Alchip is transitioning from 7-nanometer and 5-nanometer process technology to 3 nanometers, investors and shareholders have been closely monitoring whether the company is navigating through such transition smoothly. “We are proceeding well in [building] this generation [of chips]. It appears to me that no revision will be required. We have achieved success in designing
RSS