Penny stocks continue to fuel trading on Bursa

by **hlk** Thu 19 Apr 2012, 17:04

PETALING JAYA: The heavy trading volume on Bursa Malaysia, which has been a daily feature since early February, continue to be fuelled by penny stocks, with five of them accounting for more than a billion of the 2.13 billion shares traded on the market.

Total turnover for the day was RM1.61bil, with the local bourse closing 0.17% higher at 1,598.86 points in tandem with regional markets, which received a boost from firm demand for Spanish bonds as well as positive US corporate earnings.

Three of the five stocks which saw heavy trading were connected to Datuk Raymond Chan Boon Siew, who has been in the news in recent months after acquiring substantial stakes in Harvest Court Industries Bhd and Naim Indah Corp Bhd.

Chan was the developer of the 1Borneo hypermall in Kota Kinabalu under his vehicle Sagajuta (Sabah) Sdn Bhd, in which he continues to be the controlling shareholder as well as managing director.

The three stocks in question – Metronic Global Bhd, Ariantec Global Bhd and Naim Indah – together accounted for more than 732 million shares traded. Chan had emerged as a substantial shareholder in ACE Market-listed Ariantec on Tuesday with a 5.1% stake.

Metronic closed two sen higher at 19.5 sen, Ariantec was one sen lower at 19 sen while Naim Indah gained half-sen to 54 sen.

Chan became a substantial shareholder of Metronic on March 23 after buying a 5.18% stake in the company, a provider of system integration and e-project management of security and automation product integration. Metronic has a 11.7% stake in Ariantec.

The two other stocks which made it to the top five in terms of trading volume were ACE Market-listed Supercomnet Technologies Bhd and Focus Dynamics Technologies Bhd. Supercomnet was up 3.5 sen to 23 sen while Focus slid half-sen to 18.5 sen.

Supercomnet was in the limelight late last month after revealing that the company’s major shareholders had offered Mohd Nazifuddin Mohd Najib, the son of Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak, an option to buy 45.357 million shares of the company at 22.5 sen each, representing 18.66% of the issued and paid-up capital of the company. Nazifuddin declined the offer.