Morning Highlights

U.S stocks slid and the Dow Jones Industrial Average falls 104 points, closing below 10,000 for the first time since November 4 amid.

Singapore Stocks opened weaker, with index dropped 13.74 points to open at 2679.88, following a fall on Wall Street amid heightened concerns deteriorating European government finances will derail the economic recovery.

Corporate Announcement:

  1. SingTel today announced that its net profit for the quarter ended 31 December 2009 rose 24% to S$991 million, with its businesses in Singapore, Australia and regional mobile associates reporting improved performance.
  2. Keppel Corp’s specialised shipbuilding arm, Keppel Singmarine Pte Ltd (Keppel Singmarine) has clinched three new building contracts totalling about S$140 million.
  3. Genting Singapore is pleased to announce that Resorts World at Sentosa Pte Ltd, an indirect wholly-owned subsidiary of the Company, has been issued a casino licence by the Casino Regulatory Authority, Singapore on 6 February 2010.

News Updates

  1. The US job market improved in January for the fifth consecutive month, pointing to possible job growth in the first quarter of this year, a research group said on Monday.
  2. CIT Group Inc said its new Chief Executive John Thain will get an annual base salary of US$6 million (S$8.53 million), most of which is in stock, and a bonus of up to another US$1.5 million, in a nod to compensation practices… (Straits Times)
  3. Electronic Arts Inc net loss narrowed in the third quarter, to $82 million, or 25 cents a share; Hartford swung to a fourth-quarter profit of $557 million, or $1.19 a share, from a net loss of $806 million, or $2.71 a share, in the same period a year earlier.
  4. South Korea producer price inflation hit a 10-month high in January, providing fresh evidence of growing consumer inflation pressure in the pipeline and adding to the case for a central bank interest rate increase soon.

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. <The Quick Picks referred herein contain overnight positions from Yesterday>

Bearish Stocks (Singapore)

Symbol

Name

Entry

SL

TSL

TP

Remarks
1 HSEN Hiap Seng Engineering 0.57 0.64 0.50  
2 OCBC Oversea-Chinese Banking 8.07 8.44 7.7
3 DBSM DBS Group 13.92 14.28 13.56
4 UTOS UOL Group 3.65 3.81 3.49
5 YNLG Yanlord Land Group 1.54 1.69 1.39
6 GENS Genting Singapore 1.03 1.19 0.87
7 BANY Banyan Tree 0.66 0.695 0.625
8 HLAA Hong Leong Asia 3.19 3.38 3.00  
9 IFAR Indofood Agri Resources 1.91 2.12 2.02 1.70 Overnight, Current Price at 2.0

Stock Prices last updated at 17.05 (Singapore Time)

Afternoon Highlights

The market has moved into green territory and holding well above 2700.

  • Singapore Tourist Arrival fell by 4.3% last year to 9.7 million, driving the revenue from the sector down 19.2% to S$12.4 billion , the country's tourism promotion agency said on Tuesday.

News Updates:

  1. Toyota Motor Corp. announces another recall involving about 400,000 vehicles worldwide.
  2. Japan’s machine tool orders surged 192% yoy in January after an increase of 63.4% in December, Japan Machine Tool Builders’ Association said Tuesday.
  3. U.K. January Monster Employment Index Falls To 111 From 120 In December.
  4. Thailand no immediate plans to reverse its stimulus program adopted since early 2009, said Finance Minister Korn Chatikavanij.
  5. U.K. December Total Trade Deficit GBP 3.3 billion vs GBP 2.9 billion Deficit Last Month. 

In Summary

Index did a last minute surge during closing. On the surface, market seems to be recovering progressively in today’s trade, with the key STI up 51.4 points to close at 2745.02.

However, the climb is pushed by weak volume, with only 1.3581 billion traded, indicates that investors are still cautious with lingering fears about sovereign debts in Europe.

Bottom-line: Market is still choppy, hence, we advise to open few positions during this period of time.