It was reported that the local share market hit a new milestone yesterday as trading volume rose to a record high of 11.81 billion shares, and driving this was a rush for penny stocks.
The all time high buying of penny stocks resulted in a total trading turnover of RM4.36 billion across the local bourse.
A penny stock refers to a small company’s stock that typically trades for less than 30 sen per share. Yesterday, 17 out of the total 20 most active counters across Bursa were trading at less than 30 sen a piece.
One counter alone, namely PDZ Holdings Bhd, saw 1.33 billion shares traded, which is about 11% of the bourse’s total volume.
Its warrants, PDZ-WB, also saw some 492.71 million units done. Altogether, the mother stock and its warrants made up 15.4% of the day’s total.
Inter-Pacific Securities Sdn Bhd Head Of Research, Victor Wan reportedly said that more and more investors have been seen shifting their funds to the equities market in search of better returns.
Philip Capital Sdn Bhd Chief Investment Officer, Ang Kok Heng pointed to high confidence levels among investors as a possible key to yesterday’s penny stock rush.
He told an English daily that the timing has been good for investors who managed to ride on the rally that started from March’s low point.
PDZ saw close to 450 million shares traded this morning before the day’s closing at 12.30 p.m. The stock rose as high as 23 sen yesterday and also this morning.
What is brewing in PDZ, a shipping and logistics firm? There’s a lot of talk in the market that PDZ has won a RM600 million logistics contract from a top e-commerce platform operator in China.
PDZ may have got the logistics contract from Alibaba Group or Tencent Holdings Ltd who currently dominate the China e-commerce market with platforms such as Taobao and JD.com Inc.
Additionally, we now believe that PDZ has attracted a large investor in the United States and word has it that it could either be Amazon or eBay.
We cannot confirm this but we do know that this large US-based investor is believed to be interested in PDZ’s large scale logistics business and the interest came in after there was a mention in the market place about the company winning the RM600 million contract in China.
So what is next for PDZ? Will the US-based investor emerge as a substantial shareholder in PDZ or will the Chinese firm take a large stake in PDZ? What we know is that the high trading volume in PDZ is not just among locals but international investors. Who are they? We will try to find out more.
So keep a watch on this stock.
