KUALA LUMPUR (Jan 29): The buying interest in glove counters did not gather much steam in the afternoon trading session. The seven glove stocks on Bursa Malaysia ended the day below their day's highs, albeit in positive territory.

Top Glove Corp Bhd was the biggest gainer among its peers. The stock gained 53 sen or 8.53% to end the week at RM6.74 — the highest closing in the new year — after it hit the day's high of RM7.12.  

Top Glove was the most actively traded stock on the exchange with 161.62 million shares changing hands today.

Some quarters commented that short sellers might have rushed to cover their short positions, but this was far from the short squeeze that gripped GameStop in the US market.

As at Jan 27, the net short selling on Top Glove was at 239.45 million shares, equivalent to barely 2.9% of Top Glove's paid up capital, according to Bursa's data.

Kossan Rubber Industries Bhd had the second largest net short selling position with 55.6 million shares, or 2.18% of its share capital, followed by Hartalega Holdings Bhd's 47.06 million, or 1.38%. The fourth one was Serba Dinamik Bhd with a net short selling position of 36.88 million shares or 1.09% of its share capital.

Kossan Rubber's share price reversed the downward trend in the afternoon session after it dropped to the day's low of RM4.30. It closed at RM4.45, up 19 sen or 4.46%, with some 14.42 million shares traded.  

Supermax Corp Bhd's share price rose 24 sen or 3.66% with 45.23 million shares traded. The net short selling position at Supermax was 16.25 million, or 0.6% of its share capital.

Thanks to the gains among three component stocks, namely Top Glove, Hartalega Holdings Bhd and Supermax, the drop in the FBM KLCI was not as sharp compared with the indices in the region.

The benchmark index fell 14.22 points or 0.9% to a two-month low of 1,566.40 points.

Apart from bargain hunting, the sudden heightened interest in glove counters was also attributed to some unknown parties using social media to urge retail investors to gang up against the short sellers of Top Glove.

This was inspired by the dramatic powerful rally in GameStop's share price on Wall Street. GameStop is 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, falling into a "short squeeze" position as they could cover short positions at lower share price. However, GameStop's share price collapsed yesterday due partly the trading restriction imposed by Robinhood, which has now lifted today. 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 on GameStop's share price.

Back on Bursa, the Minority Shareholders Watch Group (MSWG) has issued a statement today warning of the investing risks in such initiatives. The group advised the retail players to exercise diligence.

MSWG noted the retail investors are looking to buy shares of glove makers in an attempt to drive up their prices and counter the short sellers who tend to drive the prices down.

It pointed out that generally, institutional investors tend to have deeper pockets. "This is not to underestimate the retailers' purchasing power. At the end of the day, it may become an issue of who has deeper pockets and the stamina to sustain their initiatives," MSWG said.

The watchdog group cautioned there may be some unscrupulous retailers including "stock market gurus" who may unload their shares after having encouraged other retailers to drive up the share prices.