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.

Four Pros of trading in FX market acting oneself as a profitable Forex Signal

1. Liquidity in forex trading is money making forex signal that allows traders to gain profit potential. Due to liquidity in FX market, it’s become easy to enter & exit the position.

2. There is no fix time to begin trading in FX market, trade whenever you want. Forex market allows traders to trade from Sunday 5 pm EST till Friday 4 pm EST.

3. The FX market provides Hedging which is a profitable currency trading signal by fixing the exchange rate at which the transaction concludes in the future. To complete this Hedge, the traders buy or sell currencies through ‘Swap’ instrument (a kind of derivative instrument that allows counterparts to exchange cash flows on the basis of specific time).

4. Hedging is also implementable from future markets depending on the size of trade & the amount of currency involved in it. It’s better to get Forex trading signal when implementing hedging.

Four Stock Trading Picks to Trade in a Streamlined Manner

When it comes to build-up the wealth through equity investment, understanding the financial aspect is an integrated part to follow. Besides the understanding part of financial terms, investors must have to invest capital according to market condition & stock picking strategy. The blog uncovers how to pick the stock in order to achieve maximum returns:

a. While picking stocks, quantifiable aspects of making profit potential is executable through proper stock trading signals, but there is several information which are indefinable & cannot be measured. By focusing on quantifiable aspects make stock picking more effective instead of spending time on getting indefinable information.

b. There are several reasons for stock prices to get fluctuate. Speculation through media, opinion of investors, risk aspects, supply & demand and presence of various suitable alternatives are some reasons that make stocks to fluctuate. Trading by focusing on your own investment goals must be followed. Considering stock picks would be supportive to trade in a streamlined manner.

c. Comparison of stock price notifies you the position of stock i.e. over-valued or under-valued. Comparison of the stock price must be done either through the revenue earnings or cash flow. While examining the performance of company, getting stock price position is one of the helpful stock signals to consider.

d. Traders, who are newbie should initiate with a small capital and proceed as per the experience. Your initial target should have criteria for picking good & valuable stocks to get most of investment.

Singapore News Highlights - 5th Nov 2015

• Singapore shares opened 0.29 per cent or 8.82 points lower at 2,989.68 despite Asian stocks edging higher elsewhere in the region, consolidating recent rises on late gains in Wall Street on Friday and a rebound in the commodities complex.
• Asian stocks climbed after biggest weekly rally since Dec 2011.
• SGX is reviewing companies' compliance with CG Code.
• China Sky's non-executive chairman has resigned.
• Tee International's Q1 profit went up 23.6%.
• SIA plane had collapsed at Changi Airport gate after nose gear retracted during landing gear check.
• OKP unit has won S$12.7m JTC contract.
• Oil edged up on lower US rig count, & weaker dollar.
• IMF urgeed Japan to proceed with second sales tax hike.
• Fed should not raise interest rates just yet- as said by China Finance Minister

Singapore, Hong Kong budgets unveil divergent responses to intensifying challenges

Singapore is big on welfare, while Hong Kong is propped up by tax cuts.

Regional powerhouses Singapore and Hong Kong last week unveiled divergent responses to the intensifying challenges of rising income disparity, the need to strengthen the supply side to underpin growth, and aging populations.

According to Fitch Ratings, Singapore is adopting a more explicitly redistributionist fiscal policy while Hong Kong is introducing tax cuts as part of its latest budget round.

The emphasis of Singapore's growth policy seems to be on strengthening total factor productivity, partly through fiscal incentives. These include extending a wage credit scheme and corporate income tax rebates.

Hong Kong's approach is to boost infrastructure expenditure to deepen the capital stock, while letting the supply side take care of itself to a greater degree. The government's long-term fiscal plan calls for capex to rise by a compound annual growth rate of 9.9% from FY15 to FY19.

Fitch's analysis suggests Hong Kong is spending slightly less on identifiable social items as a percentage of GDP than in 2000, whereas in Singapore the percentage is about the same. The share of expenditures on social items in both has been rising in recent years after dipping in the early 2000s.

Nonetheless, the fiscal positions for both cities are likely to remain significant sources of credit strength over the medium term.

Fitch expects that policymakers will continue to place a high priority on long-term fiscal sustainability.
Hong Kong continues to forecast surpluses through to FY20, which means it will accumulate fiscal reserves in nominal terms over the medium term.

In Singapore, the budget plan includes a deficit of SGD6.7bn in FY15, however non-budget sources of revenue will mean that the overall general government balance will remain in surplus.

It is also notable that both governments have a tendency to budget on the conservative side, and have historically outperformed their fiscal plans. In the case of Singapore, the fiscal balance has outperformed the budget for the past 11 consecutive years.

STI MARKET REVIEW- 5th Oct 2015

Singapore’s benchmark Straits Times Index opened today at 2,778.59 points, up by 1.21 per cent or 33.92 points and ended 58.10 points or 2.08% higher to 2851.25. STI came off from its intra-day peak of  2851.25 and  low of  2822.28 Wall Street's unexpected bounce on Friday helped add some stability to Asian markets on Monday, enabling the Straits Times Index (STI) to jump 58.1 points or 2.1 per cent to 2,851.25. Turnover however, remained low and concentrated in the 30 index stocks - the entire market traded just 1.1 billion units worth S$942 million of which S$697 million or 74 per cent was generated by STI components.

LOCAL BOURSE  
                                                                        
Singapore Exchange (SGX) has launched a new index business, SGX Index Edge, that will offer comprehensive services aimed at addressing the rising demand for index-linked investment in Asia.

Market forecast:

STI is expected to be bullish tomorrow. STI has the resistance at 2860. If it breaks this level it is expected to go up till 2875. STI has its support at 2820. The bullish trend is supported by weak U.S. job data  which has eased out the fear of U.S. rate hike by FED.

STI COUNTER SPECIFIC NEWS    

• Ascendas Reit has kicked off bookbuilding on its much-anticipated Singapore dollar perpetual non-call 5, with guidance offered in the 5 per cent area.
• OSIM International is down 1.23% at $1.605 after Taiwan's Food and Drug Administration reportedly found excessive levels of pesticide residues in OSIM's majority-owned TWG Tea's "Chamomile Green Tea" that was exported from India.
• Two senior US-based energy executives have left commodity trader Noble Group in the past week.

GLOBAL FACTORS AND WORLD INDICES:

• Hong Kong stocks bounced sharply on Wednesday from the previous session's two-year lows, wrapping up a tumultuous quarter in which the benchmark Hang Seng Index plunged more than 20 per cent. At market close, the Hang Seng was up 1.4 per cent, to 20,846.30, while the China Enterprises Index gained 1.9 per cent, to 9,405.50 points.
• China's stocks rose, paring the biggest quarterly loss since 2008, as the government struggled to halt a US$5 trillion rout and the world's second-largest economy showed signs of a sharper slowdown.
• European stocks advanced, rebounding from Tuesday's decline, as investors paused to assess value in what is heading for the worst quarter in four years. The Stoxx Europe 600 Index jumped 1.8 per cent to 345.43 at 8:07 am in London.
• Nikkei The pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 index rose 2.2 per cent. The euro zone's blue-chip Euro STOXX 50 index advanced 2.5 per cent.
• Hong Kong stocks closed 1.62 per cent up on Monday. The benchmark Hang Seng Index gained 348.41.79 points to end at 21,854.5.

STI MARKET REVIEW - 1st Oct 2015

STI MARKET REVIEW :

Singapore benchmark Straits Times Index (STI) opened at 2,800.54 points, up 9.65 points or 0.35 per cent, after US stocks gained the previous night and ahead of the release of China's official purchasing managers' index (PMI) data, a manufacturing gauge and ended 11.51 points or 0.41% higher to 2772.36. STI came off from its intra-day peak of 2799.80 and low of 2772.36

Singapore stocks posted gains midday on better-than-expected economic data out of China. China's official Purchasing Managers' Index climbed to 49.8 in September, compared with a median estimate of 49.7 in a Bloomberg poll, as well as an August reading of 49.7.

LOCAL BOURSE

Singapore home prices dropped for an eighth quarter, matching the longest losing streak in 13 years, as tighter mortgage curbs cooled demand in Asia's second-most expensive housing market.
An index tracking private residential prices fell 1.3% in the three months ended Sept. 30 from the previous quarter. The slump was the most since June 2009, in the aftermath of the global financial crisis.

Market forecast:

STI is expected to be positive tomorrow as China’s official Purchasing Managers' Index has come better than expected. STI has the support level of 2778. STI has its resistance at 2828.

STI COUNTER SPECIFIC NEWS

• Singtel's Thai associate Advanced Info Service Public Company Ltd has submitted for arbitration, on Sept 30, a claim for 70 billion baht (S$2.7 billion) from Thai state-owned telco TOT Public Company Ltd.
• QT Vascular has successfully defended itself against a patent infringement lawsuit filed by another medical company- AngioScore.
• ST Engineering CEO will retire next year.
• Hong Leong Asia expects to post a loss for its third quarter and nine months ended Sept 30.

GLOBAL FACTORS AND WORLD INDICES:

• European shares rose on Thursday, buoyed by a further rebound for mining and trading company Glencore after a painful sell-off earlier in the week and bid talk for German salt and fertilizer company K+S
• Malaysian shares closed higher on Thursday, with the Kuala Lumpur Composite Index gaining 12.89 points to 1,633.93. Some 1.52 billion lots, valued at RM 1.82 billion, were traded. Gainers out numbered losers 465 to 306.
• Australian shares closed higher for a second session on Thursday, continuing to recover from a recent slide to a two-year low with the help of solid gains in the financial sector. The S&P/ASX 200 index put on 1.8 per cent, or 90.5 points, to 5,112.1, pulling further away from a trough of 4,918.4 set on Tuesday. The index has gained nearly 4 per cent in the past two sessions.