Make Gloves Great Again: Look Forward
Many are asking - why glove stocks are running after reporting huge losses. Simple, because stock market looks forward, not backwards, not even at the present. Usually, most take a 12-month view. Remember Mar-Apr 2020? Many stocks tumbled 50-70% as funds panicked and rushed to sell out holdings, especially tech stocks. On the other hand, retailers believed that although earnings outlook for stocks might be very bad for the next few quarters, but share price has fallen too much. They believed if they invest and hold their nose for 12 months, the outlook will eventually improve, and they could potentially make more than 100%. So they took the bold decision to start buying the stocks way before the stocks turn profitable. Sounds familiar? Let's examine if this is a déjà vu for gloves below:

ASP finally started rising - the one signal the whole market had been waiting for a long time, and now it's here. Harta raised ASP this Feb. Topg has followed suit, and will be raising again in April. Even Chinese players like Intco also said they will start raising in 2Q-3Q this year.

Customers' destocking will end in a few months' time (according to glovemakers), and inventory will go back to normalised level - so no more excess inventory. Once that happens, customers will have to start restocking again. One of the signs was, glove tenders from government and NGOs have stopped for 1.5 years, and recently, Topg saw the tenders coming back from UK, and rising enquiries from other countries. So, if we look forward, glovemakers' utilisation rate/volume could improve.

No more oversupply. All small glovemakers like Mah Sing, Salcon and many Chinese players have exited the market. Semperit also sold its glove business. Not to mention major players like Topg, Intco and Harta have all aborted expansion plans, and in fact, halted a big chunk of their existing capacities.

Costs will likely peak in 1H 2023, and could improve in 2H 2023, because natural gas prices (needed for production) will likely fall in coming months as oil prices have fallen almost 50% from last year's peak. Besides, the worst impact from electricity tariff hike will be effected in 1H 2023. Anwar said "we will only increase tariff for big companies that earn billions of profits". Are glovemakers making billions of profits now? Obviously not. So I believe electricity rates will not rise further for glovemakers in 2H 2023. So, if we look forward, costs could improve.

So how now brown cow? Yes, admittedly things are still not rosy yet right now, but if ASP climbs, volume picks up and cost improves later, doesn't that indicate the worst losses could be over by Mar or Jun 2023 quarter, and things could improve thereafter? So if we look forward and take a 12-month view, can we make more than 100% from gloves this time? I'm not sure, but pre-pandemic, Harta for instance was trading at RM5-7, now it's below RM2. Btw, TOPG, the leader of glove, has just seen MA200 breakout the first time after 2 years.

F China supply. Some may argue, China may spoil market, like steel last time. Consider this difference: more than 50% of steel supply comes from China, whereas only around 20% of glove supply comes from China while Malaysia has 60% market share. So who's the price determinant over the long term? Don't forget, some of their supplies need to go to their own domestic consumption. More importantly, consider ESG - Europe wants to phase out CPO due to ESG issues, and US banned Topg previously due to foreign worker treatment (but lifted it after Topg improved their treatment and resolved it). So what makes u think that these countries would wanna buy from China, which uses environment-killing coal? Not to mention the US-China trade tension now. Why would they prefer Chinese gloves, if glove purchases constitute such a tiny % of hospitals' expenditure? FYI, Europe and US buy 55-60% of gloves produced globally.

To both groups who have bought and have not bought - good luck.

Let's look forward.