emsvsi, thank you for your comment.

Everything in the article is based on referenced sources, so kindly avoid accusations. I edited the article to reflect more precisely the information in case readers do not check the linked sources. Pfizer have tracked down contracts for the delivery of 836 million doses, and Moderna - for 461 million doses according to Bloomberg.

It would be truly incredible for the entire world if the two companies could indeed increase their production capacity, and if they could contract this additional capacity out to as many countries as possible, although even with the numbers you quote the best case scenario would be vaccines sufficient for 1.5 billion people within 2021 (a little less than 20% of the world population).

icecool, thank you for your comment.

The comment from DickyMe you are quoting is inaccurate. The terminology of COVID-related deaths was specifically changed in order to reflect that the death cases reported are not necessarily caused by COVID itself (they rarely are), but that the deceased has been COVID positive at time of death.

leeruzi7, darksith, Tobby, thank you for your comments.

leeruzi7, there are a number of experimental medications right now. Let's hope that something scientifically proven will work out, at least for the more severe cases.

Tobby, yes, Israel is ahead of everyone, but no - they have not vaccinated 100% of their population, as you would have learned if you had read the article. Regarding the side effects, it was predictable beforehand that the world will focus on them. However, safety of the vaccines is only a problem as far as intent to vaccinate is concerned. The much bigger and more serious problems are related to the efficacy of the vaccines and the logistics related to their distribution.

LimitUp, Anthem2, PunTatBerSiul, calvin69, katsul51, Goldberg, thank you for your comments.

Anthem2, I suppose your question is related to the activity regarding Top Glove. I am doing some research right now and I hope to have something posted over the weekend. It is true that these shares have not been bought back.

PunTatBerSiul, unfortunately, as someone whose whole family went through COVID, with serious implications, I must strongly disagree with you. I urge you to not try your luck with the disease.

Goldberg, unfortunately the vaccine is indeed not an all-around solution for the reasons mentioned in the article (and others not mentioned due to lack of time). We still need to follow all of the safety procedures - wearing masks, washing hands as frequently as possible, and keeping our social distance from people outside of our household. Fortunately, the climate of Malaysia allows us to ventilate our homes properly and to potentially go out and breathe fresh air frequently.

calvin69 and speakup, thank you for your comments.

Note that I am not necessarily saying that anyone needs to sell their Intco shares. Intco might as well be fairly priced. The only thing we know is that there is a huge discrepancy between their valuation and the valuations of the Malaysian glove manufacturers.

Hi lkoky, thank you for your comment.

Yes, absolutely. My article was more focused on the timeline of the pandemic rather than on what we all need to do, but we certainly will need to wear masks and follow all the other precautions we have been following up to now, even after the vaccine is rolled out. This is the new normal.

https://klse.i3investor.com/blogs/bursainvestments/2021-01-27-story-h1540184805-The_World_and_Malaysia_Under_the_COVID_Siege_Setting_Our_Expectations_R.jsp

https://klse.i3investor.com/blogs/bursainvestments/2021-01-27-story-h1540184805-The_World_and_Malaysia_Under_the_COVID_Siege_Setting_Our_Expectations_R.jsp

https://klse.i3investor.com/blogs/bursainvestments/2021-01-27-story-h1540184805-The_World_and_Malaysia_Under_the_COVID_Siege_Setting_Our_Expectations_R.jsp

https://klse.i3investor.com/blogs/bursainvestments/2021-01-27-story-h1540184805-The_World_and_Malaysia_Under_the_COVID_Siege_Setting_Our_Expectations_R.jsp

https://klse.i3investor.com/blogs/bursainvestments/2021-01-27-story-h1540184805-The_World_and_Malaysia_Under_the_COVID_Siege_Setting_Our_Expectations_R.jsp

limlaopeh, the average price is the volume weighted average price (VWAP) for all the shares that have been short sold, based on official data provided by Bursa.

The VWAP for the shorted shares for each of the 4 glove counters is:

Top Glove - RM5.73
Hartalega - RM11.12
Kossan - RM4.12
Supermax - RM5.76

"newkid base on my judgement the short selling operators (Goreng Downward) already profited easily 50 million on penny stocks and 200 million from big 6 gloves stocks !!!!!
Since they have squeezed all retailers in penny stocks into hamyee, they will come back to squeeze the gloves tycoons few more round then go missing again for months ........"

As mentioned multiple times, the short seller of the glove counters is currently sitting on a massive paper loss. The current value of the paper loss (as at noon today) is -RM176 million, and this is excluding any borrowing costs they owe to the lender of the shares.

Xcatcat, the last data is valid as of Monday. At that time the net outstanding short position stood at 232,408,602 shares, or 2.84% of the company's stock.

Yesterday 7,045,000 more shares were shorted, and up to now today 975,000 more shares were shorted. So assuming that the short seller has not been buying back any shares, the total amount should be 240,428,602, or 2.93% of the company's outstanding stock.

16+% of the daily volume today so far is short selling.

Germany mulls cutting international air traffic 'to almost zero'
https://www.nst.com.my/world/world/2021/01/660819/germany-mulls-cutting-international-air-traffic-almost-zero

Excerpt from the article:

"The danger from the numerous virus mutations forces us to consider drastic measures."

observatory, thank you very much once again. I will review them carefully. I have also done some extra digging and I will share my findings a little later (probably next week).

Ron90, thank you for your comment. Banks, and a few other companies in other industries, are certainly fundamentally sound.

lching, thank you for your comment. Yes, China is always a force to be considered.

observatory, as always - thank you very much for the information. Unfortunately I don't read Chinese, so my research capabilities on the Chinese players are admittedly limited. The numbers seem to be substantially different at different sources. Do you happen to know where the original source of this data is?

30% of the total market in 3 years (by end of 2023?) would likely mean they would have to produce 130-140 billion gloves per annum, which I think is pretty much impossible. For comparison, with a very aggressive expansion campaign Top Glove will be able to produce 134 billion gloves per annum by the end of 2022, and they target total capacity of 190 billion gloves per annum by 2025.

menotassassin, today's total short selling on Top Glove is: 7,045,000 shares, or 20% of all sell-side trades for the day.

birkincollector and newbie8080, thank you for your comments.

birkincollector, the market size is usually directly proportional to the amount of capital that market attracts. Unfortunately, it does seem like the big glove manufacturers have outsized the Malaysian stock market as the amount of capital they attract (either in a positive or in a negative manner) is beyond the scope of Bursa.

newbie8080, yes, that is what I said in my post. However, please note the irony of the biggest glove manufacturer producing almost 5 times more gloves (at higher profit margin segments) than the biggest glove manufacturer by market capitalization. Note that Intco is actually not even listed on the main Shenzhen stock exchange (they are listed on ChiNext).

Xcatcat, if no closing of short positions has been done yesterday, at present approximately 236 million shares of Top Glove are in open short position (including the ones shorted this morning), or about 2.87% of the outstanding shares of the company.

Short selling for today so far:

Top Glove - 3,010,000 (19% of the entire daily volume of sales)
Hartalega - 198,100 (6% of daily volume)

Goldberg, tylee81, Jim Tan, thank you for your comments.

tylee81, I keep hearing that the quarterly results have been expected by retailers (bless their incredible foresight), and then I keep seeing analysts coming out and saying things like "results beat expectations by 20-30%", so I am not exactly sure what to say. Yes, great results were expected, but the results have consistently been beating even the consensus expectations by a significant margin.

witan, Icon8888, Anthem2, thank you for your comments.

witan, it does seem like the biggest collectors of sold shares have been retailers, based on daily stats.

Icon8888, the earnings prospects of the Malaysian glove manufacturers depend to practically a negligible extent on if there would a full lockdown in the country or not.

Anthem2, I always welcome opposing opinions. Unfortunately, not many have been particularly constructive.

The paper loss of the short seller, as of end of trading today, stands at:

-RM315,770,595

CCCL, thank you for your comment. Unfortunately the Malaysian stock market is indeed of insignificantly smaller size. However, foreign funds can still access it. Hopefully things will improve, especially after the listing of Top Glove on HKEX.

Andre Kua, thank you for your comment. I did my absolute best to find as much information as possible on Intco Medical over the last few weeks. Unfortunately, apparently in their financial reports they don't provide revenue/profits by segment of their business. In any case, I have seen a number of places give gloves as their main business. Please note that no company operates in only one sector, or sub-sector. For instance, Supermax produces contact lenses and face masks, besides gloves.

soojinhou, thank you for your comment. Neither the markets' participant composition, nor their size, nor their depth and breadth are the same. This has little to do with companies and their earnings versus corresponding market price though.

super_newbie, could you let me know where you got the information from? As of September last year their total capacity was 19 billion pieces.

Targeted and Goldberg, thank you for your comments.

wkc5657, the frenzy from June-October last year on Bursa was nowhere near to the level it is on Intco right now. Additionally, the drivers were different. The Bursa frenzy was predominantly short-term profit taking driven as became evident after profits were quickly taken post-vaccine news. China's buying momentum is a lot more related to fundamentals.

Primeinvestor, could you let me know where you got the information from on Intco? I stand corrected on Supermax's capacity. As of 31 December 2020, their capacity is 26.175 million pieces (see: https://www.bursamalaysia.com/market_information/announcements/company_announcement/announcement_details?ann_id=3099760)

gohkimhock, thank you for your comment. The earnings potential of the glove manufacturers at present has relatively little to do with the total world population, and most certainly it has nothing to do with yours or my personal yearly glove consumption.

A quick article for end of the day, because some people have been asking me if the Malaysian gloves are still worth it even with the prices as of today close:

https://klse.i3investor.com/blogs/bursainvestments/2021-01-25-story-h1540153149-Intco_Top_Glove_Supermax_A_Quick_Comparison.jsp

A quick article for end of the day, because some people have been asking me if the Malaysian gloves are still worth it even with the prices as of today close:

https://klse.i3investor.com/blogs/bursainvestments/2021-01-25-story-h1540153149-Intco_Top_Glove_Supermax_A_Quick_Comparison.jsp

- 12.8 million shares shorted since Wednesday last week

- 12 million were bought back Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday last week; no data for Friday, but by the look of things, probably 1 million bought on Friday

Highly likely the short seller is out of shares to short at this point.

Huge percentage of the sell side since restart of trading is short sales:

1.23 million shares shorted in the past 40 minutes.

It is possible that the short seller's shares are over though.

If my calculations are correct:

- Excluding Friday last week (for which we do not have up-to-date data), the short seller has bought back 12 million shares of Top Glove.

- Between Wednesday and Friday last week they short-sold 8.4 million shares.

- This morning session they short-sold 3.17 million shares (10% of the entire morning volume).

I believe the shares they are shorting right now are the shares they actually bought back. Thus, unless they have bought back some shares on Friday, they have only about 430,000 shares more to short for the afternoon session.

The total paper loss for the short seller just breached the RM300 million mark.

6.50 wall was broken.

Targeted, AdCool, calvin69, thank you for your comments once again.

AdCool, that is a very valid point. Unfortunately I haven't seen Top Glove break down their revenue by region. That would allow us to understand better the financial impact of the ban.

calvin69, my expectation is that this will be one of the very first things that will happen once Biden gets around to dealing with the PPE situation.

will75, the VWAPs for the short positions on each of the glove stocks are:

On Top Glove: RM5.69
On Hartalega: RM11.08
On Kossan: RM4.12
On Supermax: RM5.75

You can calculate the losses from there.

Paper loss for the short seller as of right now:

On Top Glove: -RM170,451,636
On Harta: -RM77,370,702
On Kossan: -RM12,855,152
On Supermax: -RM17,531,165

Total paper loss: -RM278,208,655

"MrGlover @Ben Tan At every 1 sen the price of TG increases, the paper...."

It ends this way:

At every 1 sen the price of TG increases, the paper loss rises by RM2,249,768 (and vice versa).

"MrGlover @Ben Tan, you analyses seem to have been cut short. Maybe split into different comments?"

Hmm, what is the last word you see in my comment?

A quick update on the short selling activity:

On Monday and Tuesday last week, 0 shares of Top Gloves were shorted. At the same time 5 million shares were bought back on Monday, and another ~6 million shares were bought back on Tuesday. Thereafter, the shorting continued with a total of 8.4 million shares shorted between Wednesday and Friday.

On Thursday itself, ~1 million shares were also bought back. So in total, in the last week (excluding Friday, for which we do not yet have up-to-date data), the short seller(s) bought back 12 million shares, and shorted additional 8.4 million shares.

It is my strong belief that right now the short seller is actually shorting the shares they bought back. Thus, the likely have 3.6 million shares left to short, provided they haven't been buying back shares on Friday.

If you are wondering why they are doing this - buying back and then short selling again, that's because they are trying to increase the volume weighted average price at which they short the shares. In the beginning of the week the VWAP for TG shorts was RM5.6738, and they have managed to improve that to RM5.6924, or RM0.0186 (a little less than 2 sen). Thus, at the closing price from Friday of RM6.25, their paper loss just on the Top Glove short stands at RM125,447,063.

At every 1 sen the price of TG increases, the paper loss rises by RM2,249,768 (and vice versa).

bullpiano, Goldberg, ahbah, thank you for your comments.

Yes, it appears that Supermax will be in an ideal position to explore long-term contracts with the US government. The United States is by far the largest consumer of medical gloves in the world.

pjseow, thank you for your comment.

Indeed not the full capacity of Top Glove is affected by the ban, and this is the reason why the fall in sales is not sharper.

Let's hope so!

Based on my rough calculation, if they have a 2-week inventory ready, they should have about 690 million pieces in the US (assuming 25% of sales/deliveries went to the US pre-ban). That's based on the 85.5 billion pieces yearly production reported in August, and 85% utilization rate.

If they sell them at $150/1,000 pieces spot price, that's a little over RM40,000,000 extra revenue. Not bad :)

AdCool, thank you for your comment.

Just a couple of quick notes - the 2% sales drop is year-on-year. In other words, it's the difference between 1QFY20 (September-November 2019! long before COVID) and 1QFY21 (September-November 2020). Bear in mind that this is for the entire North America region, which also includes Canada (a large per-capita glove user) and Mexico. The drop quarter-on-quarter between 4QFY20 and 1QFY21 must be substantially bigger than 2%. Thus, the US warehouse stock may actually be quite a lot larger than 500 million pieces.

My opinion on why the Biden administration spells good times for the Malaysian gloves (and especially for TG and Supermax):

https://klse.i3investor.com/blogs/bursainvestments/2021-01-23-story-h1540123454-Biden_Presidency_Spells_Good_Times_for_Malaysian_Gloves.jsp

My opinion on why the Biden administration spells good times for the Malaysian gloves (and especially for TG and Supermax):

https://klse.i3investor.com/blogs/bursainvestments/2021-01-23-story-h1540123454-Biden_Presidency_Spells_Good_Times_for_Malaysian_Gloves.jsp

On working conditions in Malaysia:

https://www.therakyatpost.com/2020/11/04/theres-a-protest-in-bangladesh-for-workers-demanding-to-return-to-malaysia/

ruby20, thanks for sharing. Please see your private message here when you get the chance.

From tonight:

"AstraZeneca Plc has informed European Union officials on Friday it would cut deliveries of its COVID-19 vaccine to the bloc by 60% to 31 million doses in the first quarter of the year due to production problems, a senior official told Reuters."

Source: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-eu-astrazeneca-exc/exclusive-astrazeneca-to-cut-eus-covid-vaccine-deliveries-by-60-in-first-quarter-eu-source-idUSKBN29R2I9?il=0


From last week:

"Pfizer Inc. will decrease deliveries of its Covid-19 vaccine to countries outside the U.S. in the next three to four weeks as it renovates a factory in Belgium."

Source: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-01-15/pfizer-to-cut-covid-vaccine-deliveries-as-it-renovates-factory


"Italy is considering legal action against Pfizer Inc after the U.S. drugmaker announced a further cut in coronavirus vaccine deliveries, the country's COVID-19 special commissioner Domenico Arcuri said."

https://au.finance.yahoo.com/news/italy-considers-legal-action-over-140511169.html