Business & Markets 2013
Written by Chong Jin Hun of theedgemalaysia.com
Monday, 16 December 2013 21:26
KUALA LUMPUR (Dec 16): Based on Bursa Malaysia announcements and news flow today, stocks to watch tomorrow (December 17) may include the following companies :
FBM KLCI-linked firms with high foreign shareholding will be closely watched. This comes ahead of the US Federal Reserve's meeting tomorrow and Wednesday (December 17 and 18).
The meeting is closely watched in anticipation that US policy makers may opt to start reducing the world's largest economy's quantitative easing measure this month or postpone the move till the first quarter of next year.
Reuters reported that the Federal Reserve meets on Tuesday and Wednesday to discuss tapering its $85 billion in monthly bond buying and opinion is divided on whether it will move this week or wait for January or March.
Plantation shares may also be in the spotlight after Malaysia maintained the export tax for crude palm oil (CPO) at 5%. Analysts said maintaining the tax at the current level could make local CPO more competitive globally.
“Prices have been climbing, so keeping it unchanged is a good thing, otherwise it would have made exports even more expensive,” Alvin Tai, an analyst at RHB Investment Bank Bhd was quoted by Bloomberg as saying.
“This will benefit the Malaysian exporters as it will make the export prices a little bit cheaper compared to Indonesia’s,” Tai said. Bloomberg reported that Indonesia, the top supplier, last month raised its CPO export tax to 12 percent for December from 9 percent in November.
SapuraKencana Petroleum Bhd has secured offshore oil and gas (O&G) facility transportation and installation projects undertaken by eleven production sharing contractors (PSC) of Petroliam Nasional Bhd (Petronas) across Malaysia.
In a statement to the exchange today, SapuraKencana said its wholly-owned subsidiary TL Offshore Sdn Bhd "has received the official letters of award in relation to the contracts from all of the PSCs" for packages C and D.
BIMB Holdings Bhd expects to achieve a return on equity (ROE) of 26% in financial year ending December 31, 2014 (FY14). Return on assets (ROA) is seen at 1.7% in FY14.
The FY14 key performance indicators of BIMB, an Islamic financial services provider, compare with the group's forecasted FY13 ROE and ROA of 20% and 1.7% respectively.
Boustead Holdings Bhd shares will trade ex-dividend tomorrow. The diversified entity plans to pay a third interim single-tier dividend of 7.5 sen a share.
The company intends to pay the dividend this December 30.