China intended to use Uyghurs slaves to give it an unfair economic advantage, but the world found out, which caused serious damage to China's reputation. It's possible China also instigated the war in Ukraine to distract people from its current human rights abuses.

It's actually Xi Jinping's that is responsible. He wants the west to be at war so that the US will be too busy when China finally use military force to takeover Taiwan. But it failed when the NATO refused to send troops to fight Russia directly. Now that Ukraine is proving to be stronger against Russia as previously thought, and that Russia is becoming increasingly isolated from the world due to sanctions, Xi Jinping is having second thoughts about supporting Putin. Ultimately, Xi Jinping lied when he pledged that there will be no limits to the Russia-China partnership. Putin should have never trusted him. Xi can't even back him up during the UN vote. Belarus, North Korea, and Syria make for better friends than China.

qqq3333 I'm a hater because I speak facts? Huh, you probably shouldn't be investingin stocks then, especially not with that mentality.

Is china extensive HSR really something to praise about? Most of it are underutilized, but the debt they took to finance those HSR are enormous. it also crowds out conventional train, which are cheaper for consumers and better for cargo. A lot of cargo in China still has to be transported by trucks because the HSR are not good at carrying cargo.

The problem with China is that they've been building infrastructure for the sake of building them. There's not much thought put into the economics, just build build build. I guess that's what happens when you keep having engineers as leaders. For a hammer, everything is a nail.

Then china won't get its supplies of advance semiconductors, very important in powering anything that needs decent computing power. How will factories assembling iPads in China run without supplies of Apple M1 chip that can only be manufacured by Taiwan. So China will only shoot itself in the foot.

Plus, China may be the biggest market (in PPP), but it's not the only market. And unless they control the financial system like the US does, sanctions wont work to the degree of collapsing Taiwan. It's more likely that Taiwanese will be more angry and hate China, making "reunification" even more unlikely.

Taiwan has never been under the People Republic of China. How can they reunify with something they were never a part of? The PRC should just leave the Taiwanese alone, stop being war mongerers.

Taking Taiwan will be easy? Hahaha, that's jsut CCP propaganda. No war is easy. Especially if it's on enemy territory.

You say Taiwane politics very ugly, but its a high-income country. So that mean PRC's politics is uglier because only upper-middle income.

Uniting Taiwan? You mean by invading and killing Taiwanese and taking everything the Taiwanese built through their own hardwork. As if destroying chinese culture wasnt enough, now thhe CCP wants to fight with other chinese. Barbaric. Let me guess, you expect the CCP to "adapt" or "reinvent" themselves out of that too XD.

So much overglorification for the CCP, even though PRC not high-income country, unlike Taiwan haha.

qqq3333

Taiwan didn't blow up Confusious' tomb, unlike the PRC. Traditional chinese culture in mainland China was destoyed by the CCP. They didn't just abandoned it or changed it, they went so far as to destroy it, and even killed people so that it doesn't even exist in the mind.

And btw, Taiwan is a high-income economy unlike China. So talks of the CCP government being the best form of government that can govern the chinese people is false. That's probably why the CCP wants to take over Taiwan, it a testament to their failure. That there is a viable and better alternative to one-party dictatorship rule. So your love for the CCP is not based on facts, but ideological driven.

Most technocratic government? Then why still not developed high income country like Japan, SK, and Singapore?

The CCP took into account the nature of chinese society? You mean by destroying the The Four Olds: Old Ideas, Old Culture, Old Habits, and Old Customs of chinese people during the cultural revolution. Mao considered the Confucian belief system to be bourgeois and reactionary, a philosophy that had too long kept the chinese people backward. So “The Analects” was banned and Confucian texts burned. Qufu Confucius’s tomb was blown up by the Red Guard.
Next, chinese architecture were destroyed, classical literature and Chinese paintings were torn apart, and Chinese temples were desecrated. With all that destruction of chinese culture and caused by the CCP during Mao's era, I think remnants of true traditional chinese culture can only be found among its diaspora, where Malaysian/singaporean/taiwanese chinese are more attuned to traditional chinese culture.

Sslee

USA is sh*thole. Prefer to do business with them, buying their products (including shares), and getting their sweet sweet capital, but hell no to living there. This goes for both China and USA.

Some people really like to describe China as if it's some kind of Wakandian utopia, as if it's the richest, smartest, strongest, most advance, most moral country in the world, that can do nothing wrong and whose leaders will always get it right. It's downright crazy. Perhaps some critical thinking should be in order to understand the real reality of China.

qqq3333

"greatest in human history", yet living standards are still lower than Japan, South Korea, Singapore. Most Asian countries (including upper-middle income country, Malaysia ) also started from the bottom and reduced extreme poverty, not just China. So the question remains, why should developing countries follow China's development model when China itself have not manage to achieve high-income status like Japan, Singapore, and South Korea?

First in all aspects? That's nice and all, nothing wrong with being ambitious. Even Malaysia, in its 12MP, plans to be a high-tech and high-income country in just 4 years. But until those ambitions are actually realised, what is there to shout about?

Are you Malaysian? You seem waaaay too excited and defensive of China to be Malaysian.

qqq3333

Perhaps you should do extensive study of reliable informational reading materials to understand the "reflection of the times", instead of watching films commisioned by the the CCP. You wouldn't expect UMNO to give a reliable unbiased assessment of their achievements, so it makes no sense to now give the benefit of the doubt to the CCP who went so far as to create a "Great Internet Firewall" to control what chinese can and cannot see.

qqq3333

I'm not comparing balance sheet, I'm comparing results. And the results shows that countries like Japan, Singapore, South Korea have higher living standards than the Chinese. So your assertion than the chinese development model is the model that developing countries should use makes no sense. This is plain fact justified by data, unlike your hypothethical assertion of "China's common prosperity may change the world". It may or it may not. But there's no good reason to value of a country based on remote hypotheticals.

A deeper perspective? That's just what people like to tell themselves to justify a bad investment.

When it comes to choosing development model, it's better to look at the model used by developed high-income countries, and the chinese model does not fit into that category.

I admire China's heft, but once you put things into perspective, they're record is not that impressive. The Japanese, South Koreans, Singapore citizens have higher living standards than Chinese. So how is it that despite having crazy amount of control of its citizens, and plenty of resources, the best China can do so far is being a developing upper-middle income country, while the other Asian tigers are already developed high-income countries?

The answer might be quite simple, dictatorships are risky business. The recent tech crackdown by the CCP proves this. Just like that, the CCP stopped tuition companies from making profits, wiping billions of shareholder value. Didi, Tencent, Alibaba have also not been spared. Chinese companies prefer to list in New York instead of Shanghai. In China, the CCP is the law, and that's not good for business seeking legal protection. One main reason Hong Kong was a financial success is because it followed british law instead of Chinese Law, this gave investors some assurance that their investment will be protected, which allowed for capital to flow into mainland China.

qqq3333

What the west thinks of China's dictatorship is of little importance. The problem is that dictatorships are not sustainable and may not last. As you said "what more can a person ask from their country", the Chinese are asking and expecting their government to deliver great economic success, in exchange for personal freedom and tight control over the China's populace. But what happens when China eventually hit a major recession, or a large enough financial crisis? Not unlikely considering that its overall debt was 270.1% of GDP at the end of 2020. Expecting that China will continue to grow its GDP at breakneck speed forever is delusional. Also you said the new generation of Chinese have only seen success, so the true test of their loyalty to their dictators is when they've finally witness government failure. And past dictatorship will show that citizens do not take kindly to a dictatorship that fails to meet their end of the bargain.

That's why China made a big mistake scaring the US. The Americans are a paranoid bunch, and are very kiasuu in protecting their dominance. That's why Deng Xiao Ping chose to hide China's strength and bide its time. Xi Jinping's idio-tic wolf warrior tactic only emboldened the Americans to burn more cash into its already superior technologies, making it harder for china to simply catch up.

It's more likely the dictatorial government of the PRC will collapse first before the US goes under. And becoming like Japan is the last thing China wants, economic growth of <1% and a population of elderly people is not something to look forward to.

To think that the US is failing is just naive. They're richer and bigger than they were decades ago. GDP is a gross figure, like revenue on a company balance sheet. After you minus all the expenses (social security, military, food, education, etc), what's left is the surplus wealth available for the country to spend on new investments. And the US surplus wealth is faaaaar above that of China. Why do you think despite being the 2nd largest economy (1st largest by PPP), chinese living standard is still below that of the US, Japan, singapore, sweden, etc. When it comes to spending power, US still wins.

Restriction on hardware and software export to chinese companies almost bakrupted chinese telekom gant ZTC. Both countries are reliant on each other.

Wow wht an ignorant article!

US sent actual people to the moon. Not just rovers like China

The missiles are russian made, not chinese.

Chinese yuan replacing the dollar as the world's currency? Not gonna happen with the PRC's strict capital control.

Highest technological expertise? An effective ban on hardware and software export to some chinese companies almost bankrupted ZTC. It's obvious that China is still dependant on US technology.

But definitely don't hold for the long-term. Karex is not an investment grade stocks. It's fundamentals look pretty bleak.

"There will be a gestational period. In 1-2 years I foresee it doing well."

Take note that they don't have much time left. Their OBM segment is being supported by cash flow from their profitable tender segment. But this segment is declining. According to Karex CEO himself:

"...tender pricing has declined by about a fifth in the past few years from its peak, resulting in significant margin erosion in the tender segment because condom budgets have been cut by European governments and the US.

' would say that from the peak, it has probably dropped about 20%.' ..."

Now this was before the pandemic in 2019. With the pandemic, it's likely the tender segment will deteriorate further as governments will allocate resources to mitigate their declining economic situation and health care cost instead of helping other countries to prevent HIV. So without this cash flow, they will have a lot of trouble supporting their OBM segment. It's just bad luck.

@Tryingtogetrich

I used to be optimistic about their OBM segment too. But unfortunately, that segment is not yet profitable because it has yet to reach scale. And it seems like it might never will. ONE brand condom is the 2nd most popular brand in Malaysia. Sounds good, but remember, Malaysia is a small market. Their gains here won't be enough to offset the high marketing cost involved in building their brand. That's why their profit margin is still ultra low.

At the moment, there seems to be no indication that their sales in indonesia, singapore, thailand and vietnam is doing well. Even Durex reported experiencing lower sales now due to the pandemic because people are no longer socialising enough to encourage more sexual encounters.

Also, people in conservative countries tend to buy their condoms online now because of stigma. If you look at lazada or shopee for singapore, vietnam, and thailand, etc. It's quite hard to find ONE Brand condoms unless you go deep into the websites.
So it's quite unlikely that people are going to buy Karex condoms online.

But this speculation-driven rally might still continue tho. I don't see any reason why it would stop now. Especially when the 4th quarterly report is still 3 weeks away. So you might still have time to gamble your money in BURSA CASINO.

Yes..........jkjkjk.

Before someone says Karex makes condoms for Durex, Karex only supplied 1% of Durex condoms recently. Actually, up until 2011, at least 50% of Durex condoms were supplied from India.

Lot's of things will grow till 2025. It's been growing these past few years too but Karex is still making loses because it made bad investments trying to beat the real king of condom, Durex (Reckitt Benkiser). With bad financial performance and less than 1% dividend, I'm sure there must be better options.

@WinnerWay
"Typically it won't be investor relations office to announce this type of big news"

It was to clear up confusion concerning Medical Latex (DUA) Sdn Bhd. Exact quote was "None of our subsidiaries, including Medical Latex (Dua) Sdn Bhd, are involved in the production or sale of rubber gloves." This confirms Karex is not in the process of making gloves now. They're not sourcing equiptments for gloves making, they're not signing contracts with clients, they're not compounding new chemical compounds for gloves, nothing. It's the reason no one here can give proof that Karex is going to make gloves. The rally is the past 3 days was purely speculative.

"somemore enquiry phone call from someone they don't know at all"

Thats what investor relation is for. To answer enquiries of current/potential shareholders. It's in the name, Investor Relations.

If I was speculating this counter, it seems to make more sense to be aware of the reality so that I know when to exit. To lie to myself and believe in false rumours is just a gateway to get eaten by the sharks.

They could even hint that they're just considering venturing into gloves, but nope, still nothing from management. This company don't care about their stock price one.

If they were going to venture into gloves, they would have announced by now so that their stock can go even higher. But nope, no news, no mention at all. Their investor relations has also confirmed that they are not producing gloves. Instead, their twitter is talking about cheese flavoured condoms lmao. It's obvious they are not interested.

I've got confirmation from Karex's investor relations office that they are not involved in the production or sale of gloves.

@gohkimbock

1) PPE are relatively easy to make. Malaysia can produce semiconductors, so PPE is childsplay.

2) Thailand and Indonesia are trying to make vaccine. Whether they'll succeed is yet to be seen. Malaysia can also try if it wants.

"Bursa Malaysia, as the market regulator failed in its job to stop excessive market speculation."

1) Bursa is not the market regulator, that's the Malaysian Securities Commission's job.

2) Excessive speculation exist in all stock markets. The 2008 financial crisis didn't start in Malaysia, the dotCom bubble didnt start in Malaysia. As long as you have humans trading, excessive speculation will always exist because humans love to gamble.

@bsklshark It's not that simple. Besides the hand shaped dipping formers, gloves (particularly powder-free nitrile gloves) also use a different chemical mixture. There's also specific configuration for dipping, curing, etc that needs to be taken into consideration to get the right thickness and strength for the glove. Theres also testing, and packaging, where they cant get the workforce needed (theres a freeze on foreign worker hiring) to operate a glove manufacturing line without sacrificing their current condom line, which is still their biggest source of revenue. So unless they buy a glove company, it's unlikely they'll be able to start manufacture glove fast enough to take advantage of the glove shortage. With a low cash balance of about RM50 million, they cant really do much acquisition now without issuing more shares, which will only dilute current shareholders holdings.

@Blood7 All the best!

@Allan2112 True..But we can only make money in obscurity if we admit this rally is illogic. That too at the expense of the irrational investors who actually believe that there is a fundamental basis to this rally (e.g. possible turnaround lmaoo). The tough question is, how sure can we be that we're not one of them ahhahahaa....

@blood7 green green green hahahaha...good lah, happy for you. Don't forget to belanja friends, mother, father, gf with your newfound wealth so that more good luck wall fall upon you...

Hopefully when it pops, not too many people will lose money, because the SC might put more restrictions on retail investing to prevent further loses, which makes it more difficult for honest investors to invest.

@carboylee It's due to irrational exuberance. There's a rubber/medical stock bubble in Malaysia. Like all bubbles, sooner or later, it will pop.

@blood7 Or it could be people who bought the counter thinking Karex makes gloves, or sharks driving the price up to con ikan bilis.

@Genesis4 Not 1 person, but a group of over excited speculators with access to margin could. Also, there are actually a few traders in i3 that could buy 5% of Karex. A syndicate conning retail investors to buy and drive penny stocks up so that they can sell at a higher price is also not unprecedented. Probably a lot easier to do in an illiquid market like Bursa.

@bibbyalive look at the brand of gloves in medical latex website, some of those gloves are made my top glove while some are made by overseas brands.

@Winmore88 Try emailing Investor Relations...they're pretty responsive from my experience.

@pineapple123

At least I wasnt sexist and misogynistic like @jacklintan. But of course you're not saying anything about that :-! .

"You think u are smart"... I'm not smart, knowing why Karex rally makes little sense doesn't require much brain power hahaha..

@pineapple123 Dude, this is a forum. Not a fanboy club for condoms ahhaaha

@Winmore all the best...

@jacklintan

You clearly don't. But don't worry, it's typical for beta males to have no idea of how stupid they are.

My attitude?You just cant handle a women who dont agree with you :-\ . Ewww...hahahaha

@satt1984

That's the wrong company. It's Medical- Latex (DUA) sdn bhd, not just medical-latex sdn bhd. They don't make gloves.

@jacklintan

"Aiyoh , Apple was the exception to the rule? Says who? Says u? Lol" Says common sense dear. How many Apple like company do you see in the world, especially in Malaysia hahahha..

Gaslighting? Bitch, do you even know how to use that word XD. Get a dictionary lol

"Get a man to lay your down tonight, haha. Don’t forget condoms ya, haha"

lol..I intend to, but only from a real men. Something i'm sure you're not. Go masturbate while wearing a condom.