Wednesday, January 5, 2011

#Stocks to watch:* MPHB, AmBank CWs, plantations, Signature

KUALA LUMPUR: The mixed overnight performance on Wall Street could give some investors the excuse to lock in recent gains on Bursa Malaysia on Wednesday, Jan 5 after the FBM KLCI surged 18.47 points or 1.2% to 1,551.89, the highest ever on Tuesday.

On Wall Street, investors abandoned red-hot commodity shares while fears of lower supermarket profits hit food retailers, sending the S&P and Nasdaq lower.

The Dow Jones industrial average added 20.43 points, or 0.18 percent, to 11,691.18. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index dipped 1.67 points, or 0.13 percent, to 1,270.20. The Nasdaq Composite Index was off 10.27 points, or 0.38 percent, to 2,681.25.

The S&P and Nasdaq pared losses modestly and the Dow edged higher following minutes from the Federal Reserve's December policy meeting that showed officials felt the U.S. economic recovery was still weak enough to warrant monetary support in the form of bond purchases by the Fed.

As for Bursa Malaysia, the head of institutional dealing at a local bank-backed brokerage said foreign funds are buying up index-linked stocks, like banks while interest was also generated by talk of an early general elections and a stronger ringgit.

Stocks to watch on Wednesday are MULTI-PURPOSE HOLDINGS BHD [] (MPHB), the eight call warrants issued by AmBank, PLANTATION []s and Signature International.

The Edge FinancialDaily, in the Wednesday edition, that shares of MPHB continue to advance, sparking market talk that the group could be firming up plans to relist its gaming subsidiary Magnum Corp.

This comes amid surging interest in numbers forecast assets, such as Tanjong plc's Pan Malaysian Pools Sdn Bhd and BERJAYA SPORTS TOTO BHD [].

AmBank (M) Bhd is issuing eight new European style cash-settled call warrants (CW) and they will be listed on Wednesday.

The CWs will be issued on the shares of SP SETIA BHD [], IJM CORPORATION BHD [], Petronas Chemicals Group Bhd, GENTING BHD [], DRB-HICOM BHD [], CIMB Group Holdings Bhd, AIRASIA BHD [] and POS MALAYSIA BHD [].

It said the tenure was about 11 months and issue size of up to 100 million each.

Plantations have surged in recent weeks, underpinned by the bullish crude palm oil (CPO) prices. ''

CPO prices hit a fresh 33-month high on Tuesday, as part of a weather-driven rally in global vegetable oil markets.

Prospects of shrinking supplies come as top Asian buyers such as China need to build inventories for Lunar New Year holidays in early February, which run for about 10 days, according to Reuters.

The benchmark March 2011 CPO contract on rose 0.9% to RM3,888 per tonne, after earlier going as high as RM3,905 -- a level unseen since March 10, 2008.

HSC Healthcare Sdn Bhd acquired 3.94 million shares of Signature International, raising its stake to 21.95 million shares.




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