Written by Joseph Chin
Saturday, 10 October 2009 20:31
KUALA LUMPUR: Blue chips on Bursa Malaysia are expected to kick off the new week on a firmer note, starting on Monday, Oct 12 , with sentiment underpinned by the extended gains on Wall Street.
However, investors should not expect large gains in the absence of any significant corporate news locally so far to garner interest.
Instead, investors would also be keeping their eyes on political developments in the country following Saturday’s MCA EGM and the Bagan Pinang polls on Sunday.
MCA delegates passed a no-confidence vote against its president Datuk Seri Ong Tee Keat by a slim 14-vote majority. Ong is also Transport Minister.
The delegates also overturned the suspension of its former deputy president Datuk Seri Dr Chua Soi Lek but did not pass a motion to reinstate Chua as deputy president.
On Wall Street, US stocks climbed on Friday, Oct 9 with the Dow hitting a closing high for 2009, as investors anticipated positive news from next week's key earnings reports and bullish broker comments boosted tech shares, according to Reuters.
U.S. stocks achieved their best weekly gains since July and snapped a two-week losing streak. The five-day rally pushed the Dow Jones industrial average up 4% for the week, while the Standard & Poor's 500 advanced 4.5% and the Nasdaq gained 4.5%.US markets will be closed on Monday.
Among the stocks to watch are Mamee-Double Decker, AirAsia, Scicom (MSC) and George Kent.
Mamee-Double Decker has proposed to undertake a bonus issue of up to 69.16 million new shares on a four-for-five basis.
In AIRASIA BHD [], Genesis Smaller Companies SICAV continued to raise its shareholding in the company. It bought 3.07 million shares on Oct 8 and raised its stake in the low-cost carrier to 184.2 million shares or 6.68%.
In SCICOM (MSC) BHD [], PT Telekomunikasi Indonesia International has raised its shareholding to 11.87% or 31.5 million shares after the recent acquisition of 5.5 million shares on Oct 1.
Meanwhile, the revamped George Kent moves upstream as the company in final stage of landing a water concession in China. It posted net profit of RM4.56 million in the second quarter ended July 30. It has cash and cash equivalents of RM57.04 million.
George Kent’s revenue was RM30.4 million for the second quarter, up RM4.7 million or 18% from the RM25.7 million a year ago due to higher sales from its industrial and project related jobs.
As for Bio Osmo, it plans to place out up to 20 million new shares of 20 sen each to investors to be identified at a later stage.
The company is expected to raise about RM4.0 million assuming the indicative issue price of 20 sen per placement share.
