Market Views 03 January 2011

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Announcements

Happy New Year ☺
This year, I will be planning a slew of courses to help everyone better understand the market and also to introduce everyone to topics that no one else covers in courses outside.
The idea is to have one session each month, free for clients.
Keep a look out for details here!
Japan is having "Golden Week" this week

Juice

Macro

Singapore GDP came in -4.9% q-o-q. Slighty better than expected (consensus: -5.0% Bloomberg, -5.5% Reuters)
Comment: 2 quarters of -ve growth to go into recession. We still need confirmation from Q1 2012

Palm Oil

Mewah (MV4) said Tuesday it plans to invest about US$145m in a crude palm oil refinery, packing plant and related logistics facilities in Indonesia. The project is expected to be completed by the end of its 2013 financial year, and will be financed through proceeds from its IPO, internal funds and bank borrowings. The refinery is expected to have an installed capacity of 630,000 MT/year. Co. also said it will delay the completion of its crude palm oil refinery in Sabah to prioritize its Indonesia refinery project, and will also delay the completion of its packing plants in Zhangjiagang and Tianjin.
Comment: Market might use this excuse to play up the stock. Take note that the delays in the other projects make this announcement a bit of a "no gain" even though output of refined products may increase by about 20% frm the current 3.8m MT/year

Shipping

Another tough year looms for shipping industry. Rates are unlikely to rebound, depressed by capacity glut, slow global growth. Experts agree rates are unlikely to rebound in 2012 across the tanker, bulk carrier and container shipping market because of too many ships meeting the world's demand for goods and energy.
Comment: Nothing interesting here. Stocks have been battered already. Take note that counters like NOL (N03), Cosco (F83) and Yangzijiang (BS6) are SIMSCI index stocks. This means that they can still be laggards if the market moves either way


Sources: Bloomberg, Reuters, WSJ, The Business Times, Analyst Reports, Company Announcements