KUALA LUMPUR (Jan 5): Investor interest in Aturmaju Resources Bhd has picked up in the new year as its counter continued to rise today.

At 3.45pm, shares of the Sabah-based timber product manufacturer surged 10.5 sen or 16.53% to trade at 74 sen, after 8.4 million shares changed hands. It had earlier risen as much as 15.5 sen or 24.41% to a high of 79 sen in the first trading session.

The counter is typically hardly traded, with a 200-day average of 119,111 shares.

Yesterday, 15.6 million shares were done while its share price rose 3.5 sen to close at 63.5 sen.

An analyst from a local brokerage firm pointed out that investors' interest in Aturmaju could be because it exports its timber products.

Commenting on this, the analyst said investors may have switched their focus to the second liners from big cap stocks.

This, the analyst said, was due to the significant rise in the share prices of big cap stocks over the past few months.

"Usually investors will buy into big cap stocks and switch to second liner if they think the big caps have risen too much," he explained.

He also warned investors to be mindful as Aturmaju is still loss making.

For the third quarter ended Sept 30, 2015 (3QFY15), Aturmaju posted a smaller net loss of RM653,000 or 1.07 sen per share compared to RM1.38 million or 2.25 sen per share a year earlier, due to higher administration cost.

Revenue for the quarter came in 14.8% lower at RM5.07 million from RM5.95 million in 3QFY14.

For the cumulative nine months (9MFY15), losses narrowed to RM170,000 or 0.28 sen per share from RM3.23 million or 5.29 sen per share in 9MFY14.

Revenue for the period came in 10.7% higher at RM24.42 million from RM22.05 million a year ago.

The company has been in the red since FY08.

According to the Department of Statistic Malaysia, the export of timber and timber-based products reported a 28.5% increase to RM2.1 billion in October 2015.

According to Aturmaju's 2014 annual report, it stated that the stronger US dollar had benefitted its revenue and profitability in the beginning of 2015 as around 95% of its timber products are exported.

It also stated that the imposition of the goods and services tax on April 1 last year would not affect its production costs as the group is an export oriented manufacturer.

(Note: The Edge Research's fundamental score reflects a company's profitability and balance sheet strength, calculated based on historical numbers. The valuation score determines if a stock is attractively valued or not, also based on historical numbers. A score of 3 suggests strong fundamentals and attractive valuations.)