KUALA LUMPUR (Jan 22): Trading volume of small-cap stocks that came under heavy selling pressure soared to record highs. Several of them dominated the most actively traded list on Monday as some share prices reversed their downward trend. 

Sarawak Consolidated Industries Bhd (SCIB), whose share price rebounded sharply by 14.5 sen or 50% to 43.5 sen on Monday, topped the list with 359.64 million shares changing hands, followed by Widad Group Bhd 336.23 million, YNH Property Bhd that hit limit down again 233.77 million and Leform Bhd 161.8 million.  

Seven companies witnessed trading volume spike of between 50% and 300% of issued share capital in the last ten trading days (see table).

In total, 7.9 billion shares of 14 counters, whose share prices were bogged down by selling pressure, changed hands in the last ten trading days. This is equivalent to 14.54% of the total 52.46 billion shares traded on the local stock exchange in the same period.

Among the battered stocks, SCIB was the most traded counter judging by its daily trading volume over the past two weeks. Cumulatively, a total of 1.92 billion SCIB shares has changed hands since Jan 9, which is equivalent to three-fold of the company’s issued share capital of 640.2 million shares. 

Notably, SCIB’s daily trading volume swelled to a record-high of 786.5 million shares last Friday — 123% of its share base in one single trading day.

Meanwhile, YNH Property Bhd saw its daily trading volume spike to an all-time high on Monday with 218.95 million shares, equivalent to 41.4% of its share base of 528.5 million shares. 

Cumulatively, the counter saw a total of 262.3 million shares changing hands during the 10-day period, which made up nearly 50% of its share base.

Another counter that has experienced erratic trading activity is Jentayu Sustainables Bhd. The trading volume of counter has seen an equivalent to 52.8% of its 439 million share base traded in the trading period under review, propped up by Monday’s record trading volume of 99.39 million shares.

Over the period, Jentayu's market capitalisation shrunk 58.4% to RM223.9 million.

In a statement on Monday, Jentayu shared that it sees the price fluctuations as short-term in nature and not reflective of its fundamentals. 

Nonetheless, stocks that have the biggest trading volume do not mean they have fallen the hardest. 

The cumulative trading volume of Rapid Synergy Bhd, which tumbled 93.6% from the peak of RM29.50, was barely 6.9 million shares. The transactions of these 6.9 million shares has wiped off RM2.29 billion in market capitalisation of the company. The stock closed at RM1.95 on Monday, down 83 sen or 29.8% with only 550,200 shares traded.