KUALA LUMPUR (March 13): Glove makers saw their fortunes reversed today, as overall bearish sentiment contributed to their declines on Bursa Malaysia.

This morning’s declines are in sharp contrast to yesterday’s gains — which were fuelled by investor sentiment over the World Health Organization’s (WHO) reclassification of the Covid-19 outbreak as a pandemic.

As of 11:13am, shares in Top Glove Corp Bhd were trading 6.91% or 45 sen lower at RM6.06 per share. It saw some 8.86 million shares traded.

The counter’s price movement at the time of writing is certainly the opposite of how it performed yesterday. Shares in Top Glove had closed 3.66% or 23 sen higher at RM6.51. Therefore, the losses seen today have outstripped yesterday’s gains.

A similar movement was also seen for Kossan Rubber Industries Bhd. It was trading 4.53% or 24 sen lower at RM5.06 per share at the time of writing, certainly outmatching the 18 sen or 3.52% gain seen at the end of the trading day yesterday.

Hartalega Holdings Bhd was also not immune to the negative price movements and downward trend seen on the local bourse today, trading 7.31% or 48 sen lower at RM6.09 per share. Shares in Hartalega had closed nine sen or 1.39% higher yesterday.

Careplus Group Bhd fell 8.20% or 2.5 sen to 28 sen, Supermax Corp Bhd fell 7.91% or 14 sen to RM1.63, while Ruberrex Corp Bhd declined 6.40% or 5.5 sen to 80.5 sen.

The healthcare index, which does count glove makers as constituents, was not the isle of tranquillity that it was yesterday.
 
Like other indices on the local bourse today, the index was down 6.23% or 84.10 points to 1,264.85 points. For context, the index had bumped up by 1.96 points or 0.15% to 1,349.95 points at market close yesterday.