Recently the stock market has really gone crazy.
We know that gloves and tech stocks continue their climb to historical high since recovering from their lows in March. To them, a PE ratio of 50 seems a norm nowadays.
Today, it's the turn of pharmaceutical stocks who take center stage.
Since one of our minister publicly said that Pharmaniaga and Duopharma will be given the "bottling job" of potential Covid-19 vaccines in Malaysia, both stocks have limited up 3 times in 6 trading days.
Pharmaniaga's share price jumped 102% from RM2.25 to RM4.55 in just 6 trading days, while Duopharma's share price gained 82% from RM1.63 to RM2.96 in the same period of time.
The vaccines will be imported and the bottling process will be done by these 2 companies. Is such business lucrative?
Well, I guess the government might make this vaccination compulsory to all citizens and there are approximately 32 million of them in Malaysia. If each individual needs 2 to 3 injections, then it will be 64 million to 96 million vaccines needed.
The government might give it for free though, and the profit margin might not be great.
It's explainable if investors and speculators fried up Pharmaniaga and Duopharma at this moment. However, it's weird that other pharmaceutical and nutraceutical stocks unrelated to Covid-19 vaccines also limited up today.
These stocks include AHealth, Kotra, DKSH, YSPSAH & Nova. The top 6 of top gainers today are all pharmaceutical stocks, and 5 of them hit limit up at 30% gain.
Boustead Holdings Berhad also gained 30% as it holds around 56% of Pharmaniaga shares.
It's strange that CCM & Apex also registered good gain respectively at 22% and 18%. Is this a coincidence?
Are people still thinking that CCM still holds Duopharma, and Apex is Apex Health? This is another example of irrationality to the extreme in stock market if it's true.
Initially I think that DKSH might benefit from Covid-19 vaccines as it serves as the distributor of many well-known international pharmaceutical companies in Malaysia, such as Pfizer, Abbott, Novartis, Roche, Sanofi-Aventis, Boehringer Ingelheim etc.
If all Covid-19 vaccines are to be bottled in Malaysia, then DKSH might not get the "windfall". However, I think that some bottled vaccines might still be imported and distributed.
Anyway, current Covid-19 vaccine front-runner AstraZeneca is not distributed by DKSH in Malaysia.
Is the rally of pharmaceutical stocks sustainable? In this stock market euphoria, nothing is impossible at the moment. We'll see what happen next.
supersaiyan3
Good information. Thanks.
2020-07-23 00:03