The big winners in the trade war: the “Four Heavenly Kings” of glove stocks all rose

February 4, 2025

With US President Trump imposing a 10% tariff on Chinese gloves, Malaysian glove manufacturers are expected to benefit from it. Boosted by this news, the “four kings” of glove stocks rose today.

Top Glove (TOPGLOV, 7113, Main Board Healthcare Stock), Supermax (SUPERMX, 7106, Main Board Healthcare Stock), Hartalega (HARTA, 5168, Main Board Healthcare Stock) and Kossan Rubber Products (KOSSAN, 7153, Main Board Healthcare Stock) all rose today.

Supermax rose 15 sen or 14% to RM1.22, with a trading volume of 37.02 million shares, making it the sixth most popular stock and the sixth largest gainer; Top Glove rose 5 sen or 4.2% to RM1.25, with a trading volume of 28.74 million shares, ranking the eighth most popular stock; Hartalega rose 20 sen or 6% to RM3.51, the fourth largest gainer; Kossan rose 14 sen or 6.2% to RM2.38, the seventh largest gainer.

Kenanga Research analysts said that this tariff adjustment will further widen the gap between the selling prices of gloves in Malaysia and China.

He said that this 10% tariff is an additional levy on top of the original 50% export tariff on Chinese gloves, further weakening the competitiveness of Chinese companies.

The Malaysian stock market opened the year with a small drop and sluggish trading

Looking at the overall market, the KLCI opened at 1547.56 points this morning, and once fell to the lowest point of the day at 1546.68 points, but then narrowed the decline and returned to the 1550-point mark, and finally closed at 1553.63 points, a slight drop of 3.29 points or 0.21% for the day.

The Malaysian stock market was sluggish today, with a total trading volume of 2.081 billion shares and a transaction value of RM1.7592 billion. There were 383 rising stocks, 589 falling stocks and 431 stocks unchanged.

In terms of sector indices, the health care index led the gains today (2.5%), followed by the construction stock index and the plantation stock index. The remaining 10 sector indices all closed lower, among which the industrial stock index became the biggest loser today with a drop of 1.0%.