KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 29 — Top Glove’s share price gained 40 sen or a seven per cent surge as of noon today, just hours after news emerged that retail investors are behind a drive to prop up the stocks of the world’s largest medical glove maker.

Top Glove Corp Bhd’s share on Bursa Malaysia opened this morning at RM7.05, a rise of over 13 per cent from yesterday. It was the highest since the stock price took a tumble at the end of June last year after its factories were shut due to Covid-19 spreading among its largely migrant workforce.

Its total net short selling position was at 239.45 million shares, or just 2.9 per cent of Top Glove's paid up capital as at January 27, trading data from Bursa Malaysia showed.

Other local rubber glove makers also appeared to be riding on the bursabet rally.

Hartalega Holdings Bhd opened sharply higher at RM13.42 versus RM12.20 on Wednesday, coming off a mid afternoon peak of RM13.42 to end the morning session at RM12.86, gaining 66 sen or 5.41 per cent.

Kossan Rubber Industries Bhd saw its share price soar to a high of RM4.59 shortly after the opening bell, up 33 sen or 7.7 per cent from the closing of RM4.26 on Wednesday. Still, it closed at just RM4.33 or seven sen higher at the noon break.

Supermax Corp Bhd gained 16 sen or 2.44 per cent in the same period. The stock surged to a high of RM7.16 from RM6.56 before the Thaipusam break.

The rally comes as several Malaysians, inspired by the fairytale success of American amateur stock traders who helped shoot up the share price of ailing gaming retailer GameStop on Wall Street, started "bursabets”.

The local version on social aggregator Reddit is based off the "wallstreetbets” subreddit group, a collective of presumably stock and option traders who are now calling for "unity” against "institutions” and "big money”. Its founder claims the market to be rigged to suppress share prices of local glove makers.

UOB Hay Kian research analyst Vincent Khoo said it’s possible that today’s price movement was driven by fervent buying among bursabets members, but said the gains were unlikely to match the effect achieved by WallStreetBets.

"Of course not,” he told Malay Mail when asked if bursabets will see the same success gleaned by the US group.

"But strong earnings and fat interim dividends (esp for Top Glove) should provide at least moderate upside,” he added.

Over the past few months, a large group of regular retail traders who banded under the subreddit wallstreetbets had set their sights against shortlisters who punted on GameStop share prices to fall. Media coverage of its tactics has been spreading in the last few days,

The US-based gaming retailer’s shares are now valued at around US$500 (RM2,022.91) today, thanks to these regular traders who bought into all available GameStop shares after learning that they were being shorted.

Reuters reported GameStop’s shares have jumped by 1,600 per cent, because of this unusual trading.

Bursabets said it would target JP Morgan for now after the US-based investment bank predicted the selling price of rubber gloves to drop on the back of expectation that the Covid-19 pandemic will die out soon, as most governments begin to vaccinate their population.

The note, published two weeks ago, was blamed for the share price dip that followed shortly after. Top Glove Corp Bhd’s share declined 27 sen or 4.1 per cent to RM6.36, with some 27.9 million shares done, The Edge reported on January 14.

Despite the growing support for bursabets, some members were cautious with their expectations. Only a fraction of Top Glove’s stocks are up for shorting, or just under three per cent, compared to GameStop’s 140 per cent.

Existing Top Glove’s shareholders would need at least 40 per cent of total stocks to be shorted to achieve a "short squeeze”.

A short squeeze is a situation where short sellers rush to hedge their positions or buy stocks they punted to fall in the event of an adverse price movement in order to cover their losses.