Written by Ellina Badri & Joy Lee
Tuesday, 05 January 2010 05:41
KUALA LUMPUR: Stocks on Bursa Malaysia are expected to start on a firm note on Tuesday, Jan 5 as investors' sentiment is expected to be galvanised by the strong close on Wall Street.
US stocks rallied on Monday, their first trading session of 2010, as investors bet that the economic recovery will be sustained following upbeat data on the manufacturing sector.
The Dow Jones industrial average rose 155.91 points, or 1.50 percent, to close unofficially at 10,583.96. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index shot up 17.88 points, or 1.60 percent, to end unofficially at 1,132.98.
The Nasdaq Composite Index jumped 39.27 points, or 1.73 percent, to close unofficially at 2,308.42.
At Bursa, stocks to watch include TOYO INK GROUP BHD [], the call warrants of TAN CHONG MOTOR HOLDINGS BHD [] (TChong-CW), IJM Land Bhd (IJMLand-CW), Singapore Exchange Ltd (SGX-CW) and Wilmar International Ltd (Wilmar-CW).
Also on the watch list are LCL Corp, PROPERTIES [] , Kurnia Asia, MEDIA PRIMA BHD [] and banks.
Toyo Ink moved closer to securing Duyen Hai 3 Thermo-electric Plant project in Vietnam as it said the leaders of Tra Vinh Province, Vietnam highly appreciated and advocated for TIGB to invest in the project.
The local authorities would be refering the project to the government for investment permit. The counter received an unusual market activity query from Bursa Malaysia after a sharp rise on Monday. It closed 36 sen higher at RM2.38.
AmInvestment Bank Bhd issued four new structured call warrants whose underlying stocks are Tan Chong Motor Holdings Bhd (TChong-CW), IJM Land Bhd (IJMLand-CW), Singapore Exchange Ltd (SGX-CW) and Wilmar International Ltd (Wilmar-CW). They start trading on Tuesday.
Kurnia Asia scrapped plans to tap into Cambodia's insurance industry as it decides to discontinue a proposed joint venture with Canadia Investment Holding Plc to undertake general and life insurance businesses in Cambodia.
LCL Corp's financial woes worsen as the Royal Bank of Scotland Bhd issued a notice to withdraw facilities totaling RM40.2 million to its subsidiary LCL Furniture Sdn Bhd.
Media Prima has secured 89.64% of The New Straits Times Press (Malaysia) Bhd (NSTP) at the close of the acceptance period for its voluntary offer, slightly below the 90% level that could have given it a less cumbersome route to privatise NSTP.
Nomura is positive on Malaysian banks and contractors. It said Malaysia's recovery from the trough in March 2009 continues to look sustainable well into 4Q09 and 1Q10, propelled mainly by an economic recovery, positive earnings growth and ample liquidity in the system. Its 3Q09 GDP growth of -1.2% came in comfortably above consensus estimates of -2%.
Meanwhile, CIMB Equities Research has upgraded the property sector to overweight as it believes concerns over the 5% real property gains tax (RPGT) are "overblown" and provide investors a window of opportunity to pick up property stocks on the cheap.
It upgraded the sector from Trading Buy to Overweight and upgraded all developers to Outperform. It upgraded E&O, Hunza Prop, Mah Sing, SP Setia and UM Land from trading buy to Outperform. We have also raised the target prices for E&O, Mah Sing and SP Setia by 1-12%,"
It said the sector’s fundamentals were improving significantly and it believed one of the reasons why the government saw a need to curb excessive speculation via the RPGT was the sector’s strong prospects.