KUALA LUMPUR: Heavy churning of penny stocks including Lambo, Eduspec, XOX help propel the trading volume to a fresh record high of nearly 12.50 billion shares on Monday.
At 5pm, the volume was billion shares valued at 12.49 billion shares valued at RM6.64bil. The highest volume was on July 8 when it was 11.807 billion shares.
The FBM KLCI fell 6.88 points or 0.43% to 1,589.45 dragged down by Public Bank, Maybank and Tenaga Nasional despite the strong buying of Top Glove shares. The broader market was cautious with 592 losers to 506 gainers and 399 counters unchanged.
The positive fresh corporate news came from glove makers Top Glove and Supermax, which shares had reached sizzling heights and prompted them to proposed bonus issues.
Glove shares have surged to dizzying heights due to the Covid-19 pandemic. More than 14.5 million people have been infected by globally and more than 604,000 have died from the disease caused by the pathogen, according to a Reuters tally as of Monday.
Top Glove proposed a two-for-one bonus issue involving up to 5.48 billion new shares. Its share price ended Monday up RM1.84 to a fresh high of RM24.82, powering the KLCI up 7.66 points. Its call warrants C84 surged 40.4 sen to 65 sen with 52.6 million units done.
Supermax proposed a one-for-one bonus issue involving up to 1.36 billion new shares. It closed up but its call warrants staged a pullback. Supermax rose 70 sen to a new record of RM18.40.
Supermax C78 fell 80 sen to RM7.72, C87 58 sen to RM6.24, C77 41 sen to RM8.19, C82 37 sen to RM4.50, C85 36 sen to ERM5.37 and C84 30 sen to RM4.
Kossan added 80 sen to RM18.40 while Hartalega was 36 sen higher to RM17.46 and boosting the index by 1.90 points.
Bursa Malaysia, which stands to gain from the surge in trading volume, rose 60 sen to a high og RM9.75.
Weighing on the KLCI were Public Bank, down 64 sen to RM17.64 and erasing 3.83 points, Maybank 12 sen to RM7.82 and wiping out 2.08 points, CIMB eight sen to RM3.53 while Hong Leong Bank unchanged to RM15.06.
Tenaga fell 20 sen to RM11.34 and shed 1.76 points, IHH rose three sen to RM5.36. GentingM lost six sen to RM2.44 and Genting six sen to RM4.
Oil prices dropped, amid concerns that a recovery in fuel demand could be derailed by a rise in the pace of coronavirus infections around the world.
Brent crude was down 36 cents, or 0.8%, at $42.78 a barrel by 0653 GMT, after dropping slightly last week. US oil was off by 34 cents, or 0.8%, at $40.25 a barrel, after gaining 4 cents last week, Reuters reported.
Petronas Dagangan lost 18 sen to RM21.02, Petronas Chemicals seven sen to RM6.18 and Petronas Gas eight sen to RMRM16.32. Dialog was flat at RM3.84.
As for telcos, Digi fell 15 sen to RM4.33, Maxis and Axiata eight sen each to RM5.30 and RM3.30.
As for plantations, IOI Corp was down three sen to RM4.49 but Sime Plantation rose two sen to RM5.12, PPB Group and KL Kepong 18 sen higher to RM18.82 and RM22.80.
Among the penny stocks which saw heavy churning were Lambo, up 0.5 sen to 4.5 sen with 1.21 billion shares done, Eduspec was flat at two sen with 778.7 million shares, Nexgran rose 1.5 sen to 4.5 sen and XOX three sen to 18 sen.
Reuters reported China stocks rose 3%, led by financial firms, after regulators moved to bolster the market by lifting equity investment cap for insurers and encouraging mergers and acquisitions among brokerages and mutual fund houses.
At the close, the Shanghai Composite index was up 3.11% at 3,314.15, while the blue-chip CSI300 index ended up 2.98%.
https://www.thestar.com.my/business/business-news/2020/07/20/bursa-hits-fresh-record-volume-of-nearly-125b-shares
