*This story has been updated at market close*

KUALA LUMPUR (Aug 4): Technology-related companies MQ Technology Bhd (MQTech), K-One Technology Bhd and Notion VTec Bhd, which have recently jumped onto the personal protective equipment (PPE) bandwagon, have continued to garner interest from investors.

In the morning, MQTech jumped as much as six sen or 27.27% to 28 sen amid brisk trading, while K-One’s shares rose 9.5 sen or 16.1% to 69 sen.

At market close, MQTech pared some gains to close at 24 sen, still up two sen or 9.09%, with 321.36 million shares traded, while K-One’s shares settled at 60 sen — still up rose half a sen or 0.84% — with 316.61 million shares done.

Notion VTec, which saw 206.12 million shares traded, jumped 33 sen or 29.73% to hit limit up at RM1.44. 

All three stocks were among the most actively traded stocks of the day.

Rakuten Trade Research vice president Vincent Lau told theedgemarkets.com that the uptrend as well as ballooning volume of these stocks are driven by sentiment play as investors crowd into the Covid-19 pandemic space.

“This is the theme now… from glove counters to healthcare-related counters and also the PPEs, whichever company that is venturing into this pandemic play,” said Lau.

He, however, said it is still too early to tell what the contributions of the new ventures to the companies’ bottomlines are.

Trading interest in another tech counter, Key Alliance Group Bhd, has also surged, making it the third most active stock on Bursa Malaysia with 288.41 million shares traded as at 10.48am. Its share price was one sen or 8.33% higher at 13 sen.

On June 19, Key Alliance reported that it has obtained first stage approval to be legally allowed to market, distribute and sell the Care Gene Covid-19 Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) test kits manufactured by Well Bio Inc, Korea.