Morning Highlights

Singapore market started little changed, with STI up 2.76 points at 2808.95, following the lead from Wall Street which all the major averages ended in positive territory after a choppy session.

  • Weakness in Hong Leong Asia (New Trade Opportunity, To Short at 3.72,  Stop Loss at 3.86)

Market plunged further after 11:15, currently is off 50 points. 2800 has turned into a short term resistance.

Singapore CPI dipped 0.5% in December over November, mainly due to lower costs of housing, transport and communication. Excluding accommodation costs, the index stayed unchanged in December.

Corporate Announcements

  1. Keppel Land announced a 4Y09 net profit of 106.9mn, up 56.1% year-on-year. This takes Keppel Land’s total profit for the year of 2009 to $280.4million, up 23.1% from the previous year. The company also announced a final cash dividend of $0.08 per share…
  2. Genting will mandatorily convert all of the bonds outstanding on February 9 into shares at the conversion price of $0.95. Following this, a Conversion Agent will sell these shares and credit the relevant sale proceeds to the bondholder’s account after deducting expenses. If a bondholder does not wish to sell shares, they must send a duly completed conversion notice to the Conversion Agent by 5pm on February 8. As at close of 25th Jan, the outstanding bonds amounted to $321.1 million (or approx 265.3 million shares).
  3. NOL’s container shipping volumes for the 6 weeks from November 14 to December 25 increased 43% yoy while average revenue per forty-foot equivalent unit declined 25% yoy.

News Updates

  1. U.S equity markets rebounded overnight while the yen and two year U.S Treasury notes retreated as investors grew more confident that Ben Bernanke will be reconfirmed as chairman of the Federal Reserve.
  2. AK Steel Holding Corp reported 4Q net income of $0.36 per share, topping expectations of $0.20 per share. Net sales declined to $1.32 billion from $1.46 billion in the prior year quarter but still exceeded the forecast of $1.25 billion.
  3. Philips Electronics reported 4Q net income of 0.27 Euros per share, compared to loss of 1.26 Euros per share last year.
  4. Existing-home sales down 16.7% in December as 5.45 million units sold are weaker than forecast‏.
  5. Apple's net income rises 50%; company sells 8.7 million iPhones in fiscal first quarter‏

Quick Picks: Here is a quick pick screen that we have designed to pick out potential stocks, both Bullish and Bearish. These are measured with emphasis on larger changes in price and volume. 

Bearish Stocks (Singapore)

Symbol

Name

Entry

SL

TSL

TP

Remarks
1 HLAA Hong Leong Asia 3.72 3.86 3.58 PROFT – CLOSED at 3.66

Stock Prices last updated at 17:05 (Singapore Time)

Afternoon Highlights

Region's stock markets trade mostly lower amid concerns about possible limits on lending for mainland Chinese banks.

Some shares on the lookout to short

  1. City Development broke down support at 11.32
  2. Keppel Corp broke down support at 8.10
  3. Noble Group broke down support at 2.98
  4. Sembcorp Marine broke down support at 3.57
  5. Guocoland broke down support at 2.31
  6. Hyflux broke down support at 3.46
  7. St Engineering broke down support at 3.16
  8. Indofood Agri broke down support at 2.08
  9. UOL broke down support at 3.78
  10. SATS Service broke down support at 2.56
  11. DBS broke down support at 14.56
  12. Epure broke down support at 0.85
  13. Ezra broke down support at 2.32
  14. Hotel Prop broke down support at 2.12
  15. Sc Global broke down support at 1.94
  16. Parkway broke down support 2.77
  17. Pan Hong broke down support at 0.59

In Summary,

The trend had turned for the worse, based on current market situation, 2nd case scenario as mentioned in yesterday’s post have happened. We have closed all our bullish picks.

Market has dropped 71.38 points to close at 2740.33, with high volume of 2.8081 billion traded. Our market sentiment has shifted from neutral to bearish. We are on the lookout for shorting opportunities with the above mentioned stocks.

Other News

  • Ratings service cuts its outlook Japan's AA long-term debt to negative from stable, saying a downgrade may come unless Japan's government takes measures to stem fiscal and deflationary pressure.