KUALA LUMPUR (Jan 29): Glove counters were in high demand today, pushing share prices sharply higher thanks to the calls made by some unknown investors over social media to take on the short sellers. However, the buying spree lost some steam in the mid morning, with all retreating from their peaks.

Seven of the glove stocks listed on Bursa Malaysia "gapped up" after the opening bell, starting the trading day at prices higher than Wednesday's closing.

Top Glove Corp Bhd, which has been the main target of short sellers, opened at RM7.05 versus the previous closing of RM6.21 on Wednesday. The share price of the world's largest rubber glove maker soared to a high of RM7.12. There were 96.97 million shares changing hands in the morning session, making it the fourth most actively traded stock on Bursa Malaysia.

However, Top Glove's share price came off from the peak to close at RM6.67, up 46 sen or 7.41%.

According to trading data from Bursa Malaysia, the total net short selling position was at 239.45 million shares, equivalent to barely 2.9% of Top Glove's paid up capital as at Jan 27.

Its peer Hartalega Holdings Bhd also opened sharply higher at RM13.42 versus RM12.20 on Wednesday. It also came off from the intraday peak of RM13.42 to end the morning session at RM12.86, gaining 66 sen or 5.41%.

Over at Kossan Rubber Industries Bhd, it soared to a high of RM4.59 shortly after the opening bell, up 33 sen or 7.7% from the closing of RM4.26 on Wednesday. Likewise, the upward trend did not gather much steam. It closed at RM4.33, up seven sen or 1.64% at the noon break.

Supermax Corp Bhd, which is expected to release its quarterly results soon, gained 16 sen or 2.44% at the noon break. The stock surged to a high of RM7.16 versus its previous closing of RM6.56. Trading volume was at 29.79 million shares.

The buying interest spilled over to the smaller cap glove counters, although there were not much short selling activities on the three stocks — Rubberex Corp (M) Bhd, Comfort Gloves Bhd and Careplus Group Bhd.

At the lunch break, Careplus gained seven sen to RM2.50, Comfort was up six sen to RM3.15 after it climbed to a high of RM3.37, while Rubberex, which hit an intraday high of RM1.87, rose four sen or 2.33% to RM1.76.

Rubberex was the most actively traded among the three, with 24.9 million shares changing hands, while Careplus saw 12.5 million traded and Comfort saw 7.5 million shares transacted.

Yesterday some anonymous investors called upon retail investors to act together against the short sellers following the dramatic powerful rally in GameStop's share price on Wall Street — a video game retailer whose shares had been shorted heavily by some hedge funds.

The frenzied buying of GameStop shares by retail investors pushed the price up more than 700%; as a result short sellers were caught off guard and fell into a "short squeeze" position as they could cover short positions at lower share price.

However, GameStop's share price collapsed yesterday — the stock was down US$153.91 or 44.3% to close at US$193.60. The ultimate winners seem to be some asset management companies which had taken advantage of the share price rally to offload their shares.

South Korea's MUST Asset Management Co sold its entire stake in GameStop when the share price soared on Wednesday. Many retail investors are likely sitting on losses given the sharp fall in GameStop's share price.