Singapore News Highlights - 19th Nov 2015

• Singapore shares opened higher following the Wall Street's gain on expectations that the Fed would be confident enough about the US economy to raise rates in December.

 

• SIIC Environment Holdings, recorded more than 100.6 million shares, making it the most active counter yesterday.

 

• Cosmosteel posted a 49.3% drop in net profit to S$1 million for the quarter ended Sept 30, 2015.

 

• Sembcorp Marine won a floating storage offloading vessel construction contract from Modec.

 

• Kepple T&T appointed Tan Eng Hwa as CFO & Desmond Gay Kah Meng as CEO.

 

• Air Liquide SA's US$10.3 billion takeover of rival Airgas Inc has given the European company a leading share of the US market in industrial gases amid forecasts of further construction and manufacturing growth.

 

• Oil prices higher as traders weighed a small gain in US inventories and a Federal Reserve report that supported expectations of a December interest rate hike.

 

• USD low against the euro after the minutes of the Federal Reserve's October policy meeting reinforced expectations of an interest rate hike next month.

 

• Due to the recent global developments that aim to clamp down on Base Erosion and Profit Shifting practices of some multinationals, and also increasing emphasis on tax transparency, there is need for Singapore to re-position itself for value creation to fuel its economy's growth.

 

• Fed officials continue to flag December as a likely time for interest rates to rise after 7 yrs near zero & expressing confidence they will be able to pull off a rate hike smoothly despite fears of an abrupt market reaction.

 

• SGX partnered EBS BrokerTec, ICAP's electronic FX and fixed income business, to launch SGX-listed FX block futures on EBS BrokerTec's FX central limit order book- EBS Market, a primary venue for e-traded currencies.