This article first appeared in Capital, The Edge Malaysia Weekly on December 28, 2020 - January 3, 2021

THE Covid-19 pandemic heavily influenced the movement of share prices on Bursa Malaysia in 2020. Despite a rough patch in the earlier part of the year, the FBM KLCI recorded the fastest V-shaped recovery compared with during other major events such as the global financial crisis and the Asian financial crisis.

More than half of the public-listed companies on Bursa chalked up gains for the year. The share prices of about 120 companies more than doubled compared with the end of last year.

For the year up to Dec 15, the listed companies gained as much as RM121.08 billion in market capitalisation (cap) compared with end-2019, according to Bloomberg data.

Healthcare-related companies were the highlight of 2020. Under the super-big-cap category, the top four best performers were the Big Four rubber glove makers — soon-to-be FBM KLCI component stock Supermax Corp Bhd (+899% YTD), Top Glove Corp Bhd (+309%), Kossan Rubber Industries Bhd (+136%) and Hartalega Holdings Bhd (+119%).

Notably, the glove counters would have recorded higher gains this year if not for the news of the rollout of Covid-19 vaccines recently.

Nonetheless, their collective gain of RM85.18 billion in market cap, equivalent to 70% of the total market cap increase of all Bursa-listed stocks, was impressive.

In the big-cap space, office furniture manufacturer Euro Holdings Bhd led the gainers — from a mere 5.5 sen, it rose 4,318% YTD to close at RM2.43. This was followed by rubber glove makers Careplus Group Bhd (+1,424%), Rubberex Corp (M) Bhd (+778%) and Comfort Gloves Bhd (+315%).

Companies that have jumped on the vaccine distribution bandwagon too saw big gains. Under the mid-cap category, Solution Group Bhd topped the list, having grown 1,489% YTD, while small-cap companies Bintai Kinden Corp Bhd and Ho Wah Genting Bhd grew 709% and 581% respectively.

Meanwhile, the top gainer on the small caps list was INIX Technologies Holdings Bhd (+790% YTD), which plans to enter the rubber glove manufacturing industry.

Other notable counters are mid-caps GETS Global Bhd (+1,338%) and Hong Seng Consolidated Bhd (+692%).

Top losers on Bursa in 2020 were companies affected by the lockdown and cross-border travel restrictions due to Covid-19, particularly tourism-related firms. AirAsia Group Bhd fell 43.2% YTD, followed by Genting Bhd (-18.9%), Malaysia Airports Holdings Bhd (-18.7%) and Genting Malaysia Bhd (-11.54%).

Oil and gas counters dominated the big-cap and mid-cap top losers lists — Velesto Energy Bhd (-60.5% YTD), Sapura Energy Bhd (-51.9%), Dayang Enterprise Holdings Bhd (-49.8%), Malaysia Marine and Heavy Engineering Holdings Bhd (-47.1%) and KNM Group Bhd (-42%).

On the other hand, crude oil refiners Hengyuan Refining Co Bhd and Petron Malaysia Refining and Marketing Bhd rose 55.4% and 14.3% respectively.

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