Hot Stock Marco rises 11% on heavy volume

by **Cals** Mon 18 Aug 2014, 22:23

Hot Stock Marco rises 11% on heavy volume

Business & Markets 2014

Written by Kamarul Anwar of theedgemalaysia.com

Monday, 18 August 2014 15:10

KUALA LUMPUR (Aug 18): Marco Holdings Bhd, one of the stocks affiliated with “Small Cap King” Tan Sri Robert Tan Hua Choon, continued its rise over the past month to its highest in nearly 18 years and became one of the bourse’s most actively traded counters today.

At 2:45 pm, Marco, a distributor of Casio timepieces, calculators and digital cameras, added two sen or 10.81% to its intraday high of 20 sen with 60.69 million shares traded. The last traded price matched the intraday high of Feb 19, which is the highest that stock has gone to since Sep 30, 1997.

A dealer said Marco has been attracting interest since Jul 25. “There is heavy buying since then,” said the dealer. To date, Marco’s counter has gained 6.2 sen or 43.36% from 14.3 sen, while its average trading volume in the period was 9.86 million.

Marco, which recorded a 13.57% year-on-year growth in its net profit for the first quarter ended Mar 2014 (1QFY14) to RM3.96 million, recently saw a reshuffle in its boardroom. Executive director Siau Hock Cheng has been promoted to Deputy Chairman while taking his place is Ong Sim Jeng.

In FY13, Marco’s net profit of RM15.04 million, or 1.86 sen per share, was relatively flat compared to the previous year’s RM14.87 million or 2.04 sen per share. Revenue meanwhile was RM119.21 million against RM114.89 million.

It should be noted that in FY13, Marco paid total dividends of 2.4 sen per share. At the latest traded price, this will result in a yield of 12%. In the previous year, total dividends were eight sen per share.

On its prospects, Marco said in 1QFY14’s notes to financial results that it is optimistic of its outlook for the year given the strong brand offerings of the products it distributes. This is despite the challenging retail environment.

Bloomberg data showed that Marco is expected to release its 2QFY14 results on Aug 22.