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KUALA LUMPUR (July 11): Passion for rubber glove makers seems to be getting stronger as reflected by the amount of money shovelled into the seven glove stocks on Bursa Malaysia. 

For the past trading week, the aggregate turnover of the seven glove counters amounted to RM8.71 billion. The whopping sum was equivalent to more than one-third or 35.44% of the total turnover of RM24.57 billion on Bursa.

The seven glove makers were Top Glove Corp Bhd, Hartalega Holdings Bhd, Supermax Corp Bhd, Kossan Rubber Industries Bhd, Comfort Gloves Bhd, Rubberex Corp (M) Bhd and Careplus Group Bhd.

Top Glove led the pack. The world’s largest rubber glove maker’s market capitalisation (market cap) ballooned by RM9.37 billion to RM59.11 billion yesterday. The total increase in market cap among the big four stock counters in the past five trading days was RM22.29 billion.

Top Glove on Thursday overtook Hartalega to become the fourth largest company by market value in the local market.

In terms of share price performance, the glove makers continued to do well throughout the week, especially the big four.

Top Glove's share price grew 18.7% over the past week to close at RM21.92 yesterday, from RM18.46 on July 3, while Hartalega was up 6.62% at RM17.06, from RM16.

Supermax made a big leap to end the week at RM13.62, a 44.7% jump from the previous week’s closing of RM9.41. Kossan soared 32.7% to RM12.38, from RM9.33.

Meanwhile, gains among the smaller glove players were not as much as the big boys amid concerns over capacity restrictions, which may not allow them to take on more new orders.

Comfort Gloves dropped 21 sen during the week to RM3.60 yesterday, while Rubberex gained 24 sen to RM3.54 and Careplus went up 1.5 sen to RM1.49.