Stock Futures Slip on Sears Earnings

Stock Futures Slip As Sears Holdings Reports Weaker-Than-Expected Earnings, Oil Jumps

URL: http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/071129/wall_street.html

DJIA starts the day with:

13,286.36 -3.09 -0.02%

Very unlikely due to couple of bad reports:

1. Jobless Claims Hit Highest Level in 9 Months
2. Economy Has Strong Showing in Summer
3. Oil Prices Rise Over $3
4. Minn. Pipeline Fire Sends Oil Soaring

It'll be good if DJIA could close the day with slightly higher.

This post has been edited by David83: Nov 29 2007, 10:41 PM

DJIA closed the day with slightly higher:

13,311.73 +22.28 +0.17%

Stocks Extend Rally With Moderate Gains; Investors Await Bernanke Speech
URL: http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/071129/wall_street.html

Brokers positive on Sime listing

KUALA LUMPUR: Merged conglomerate Sime Darby Bhd, to be re-listed today, is poised to be the largest counter on Bursa Malaysia with a market capitalisation of over RM50bil.

Its trump card lies in its status as the world's biggest oil palm plantation group with 543,000ha of land, Malaysia's largest property developer with 15,000ha, regional heavy equipment distributorship and leading motor vehicle business and, the latest, 60%-owned Bakun hydroelectric dam.

Most research houses are giving the thumbs up to Sime Darby, with 12-month target prices ranging from RM11.40 to RM12.80 against its re-listing reference price of RM8.90.

The re-listing signifies the final leg of a one-year merger deal involving Sime Darby Bhd, Golden Hope Plantations Bhd, Kumpulan Guthrie Bhd and its five related subsidiaries. All the counters have been suspended since October.

Credit Suisse, which has an "outperform" call on Sime Darby, said the reference price of RM8.90 would translate to a market cap of RM54bil, which is larger than the market values of companies like Malayan Banking Bhd, IOI Corp Bhd, Tenaga Nasional Bhd (TNB) and Telekom Malaysia Bhd.

This equated to a 6.8% weighting on the KL Composite Index, it said, adding: "If Sime Darby hits our 12-month target price of RM12.80, the conglomerate will have a market cap of RM78bil."

It described Sime Darby as an attractive palm oil play and also a proxy to the rising crude palm oil (CPO) prices.

On the other hand, Credit Suisse said Sime Darby, despite its size and liquidity, could be traded at a discount to bigger cap planters like IOI, Kuala Lumpur Kepong Bhd, Singapore-based Wilmar International Ltd, and PT Astra Agro Lestari of Indonesia.

It said that as a government-linked company (GLC)-restructuring play, Sime Darby would need to be more efficient in terms of output and fresh fruit bunch (FFB) yields to be re-rated closer to the valuation of other efficient plantation companies.

DBS Vickers Securities is initiating a "buy" call on Sime Darby with a 12-month target price of RM12.20.

"Should the outcome of the power purchase agreement with TNB for the Bakun project be favourable to Sime Darby, our target price can potentially be raised to RM13.95," it added.

It said the strength of Sime Darby lay in its control of almost 5% of all oil palm cultivated in Malaysia and Indonesia as well as 6% of the global palm oil output. "The group will have some influence on the world's palm oil supply."

In addition, Sime Darby's earnings are relatively more stable compared with pure plantation players, given 40% of its pre-tax profit comes from property, motor vehicle and heavy equipment distribution and power and utilities.

DBS Vickers said other opportunities, including better resource relocation to develop new markets like India and China, further land expansion, divestment of non-core assets to unlock more values, and potential removal of natural gas subsidies by Petronas, would make the Bakun project highly competitive.

Macquarie Research, meanwhile, is pegging a fair value of RM11.40 to RM13.40 on Sime Darby shares.

Based on its forecast, every US$25 per tonne increase in the CPO price would increase Sime Darby's annual net profit by 4%. Its base-case average CPO forecast for the current financial year ending June 30, 2008 is US$780 a tonne.

It also believes that Sime Darby eventually could trade at valuations closer to IOI, the de facto proxy for the CPO sector, in the eyes of many investors.

"Although Sime Darby's FFB yield is poorer than IOI's currently, we believe there is potential for it to be improved as its plantations mature and through better estate management practices," it added.

URL: http://biz.thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?f...15&sec=business

What makes you think that it'll be super green? Yesterday US and European stocks are not doing averagely only.

This HAPSENG is referring to HSPLANT right?

HSI has been sliding down since this morning. Not sure what's causing such slide.

panasonic88 is most likely quoting the Future for DJIA.

The index is up primarily caused by SIME.

DIGI 25.25 +1.35

European stocks are doing great so far ... all are in GREEN.

DJIA starts the day with:

13,418.70 +106.97 +0.80%

Stocks Surge on Bernanke Remarks

Stocks Rise After Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke Bolsters Hope for Rate Cuts

URL: http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/071130/wall_street.html

US STOCKS-Market rallies rate cut, subprime aid plan

NEW YORK, Nov 30 (Reuters) - U.S. stocks rose on Friday on a report the U.S. Treasury will soon unveil a plan to help stem the subprime mortgage crisis and on comments by Fed chief Ben Bernanke that added to expectations of an interest-rate cut.

URL: http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews...20071130?rpc=44

Stocks Pare Gains After Run-Up

Stocks Pare Gains After a Week of Sharp Gains; Tech Shares Lag After Dell Report Disappoints

URL: http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/071130/wall_street.html

US STOCKS-Tech drag trips Dow, Nasdaq extends drop

NEW YORK, Nov 30 (Reuters) - The Dow pared gains and briefly turned negative on Friday, while the Nasdaq extended losses, as Dell Inc's (DELL.O: Quote, Profile, Research) disappointing outloook fueled a tech sell-off, offsetting a rise in the stocks of financial services companies.

URL: http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews...20071130?rpc=44



This post has been edited by David83: Dec 1 2007, 05:07 AM

DJIA closed the day:

13,371.72 +59.99 +0.45%

But NASDAQ isn't green:

2,660.96 -7.17 -0.27%

Sime Darby holds the crown on Bursa

KUALA LUMPUR: Sime Darby Bhd has sealed its position as the world's largest listed upstream oil palm group and the biggest stock traded on Bursa Malaysia in terms of market capitalisation of RM66bil on its re-listing yesterday.

The counter surpassed Malayan Banking Bhd's market cap of RM44.4bil and plantation giant IOI Corp Bhd's RM40.6bil.

Closing at RM11 on a volume of 68.4 million shares, the largest component of the KL Composite Index added 23 points to the benchmark.

Sime Darby made its debut at RM11.20 and was traded between a low of RM10.70 and high of RM12.10. It recorded a RM2.10 premium over its re-listing reference price of RM8.90.

An analyst with a foreign brokerage said: "It was a good debut by Sime Darby at a 24% premium since none of the other listed plantation companies on Bursa Malaysia had achieved such high premium during the six-week suspension of the merged conglomerate."

Shareholders of Sime Darby should be "satisfied" with the outcome of the re-listing exercise and can look forward to seeing the counter continue to ride on the current bullish crude palm oil (CPO) price, ranging from RM2,900 to RM3,000 a tonne.

Under the terms of the merger, each original Sime Darby share was to be swapped for 1.23 Synergy Drive Bhd share.

The analyst said that at the RM11.20 pre-suspension price per "old" share, each Synergy Drive share would have been worth RM9.10.

With the new closing price of RM11 yesterday, a shareholder of "old" Sime Darby shares has gained RM1.90 premium on each "new" Sime Darby (renamed from Synergy Drive) share.

The analyst added that Sime Darby was currently trading at around 26 times pro forma earnings, roughly in line with pure-play plantation firms like IOI Corp.

At the re-listing ceremony, chairman Tun Musa Hitam said: "Today (yesterday) is a crucial day. It is time for us to deliver."

He told reporters that the first-day performance of the stock was reflective of investors' strong confidence in the conglomerate that has diverse businesses.

"The share price was higher than what we had benchmarked. Whether the good performance can be sustained will depend on the market's judgment on Sime Darby's current and future results," Musa said.

As a conglomerate, "we are living for the future and what is important is to sustain our long-term value," he said.

President and group chief executive Datuk Seri Ahmad Zubir Murshid said: "If the price manages to stay above RM12, Sime Darby's market cap may touch RM70bil."

On the outlook for CPO prices, he said: "I cannot predict the future but we will be happy if the price trades from RM2,500 to RM2,600 per tonne next year.

"As it is, I am happy that CPO currently is trading at RM3,000 per tonne."

Zubir noted that the group's CPO selling price as of November was about RM2,400 a tonne.

URL: http://biz.thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?f...01&sec=business

Ranhill pre-qualified to bid for mega projects

KUALA LUMPUR: Ranhill Bhd is pre-qualified to bid for two mega projects in east Malaysia. The two projects are the Sabah Oil & Gas Terminal (SOGT) in Kimanis and Sabah-Sarawak Gas Pipelines (SSGP).

"We have been called in for technical clarification for SSGP and we are now waiting for the commercial evaluation," president and chief executive Hamdan Mohamad said after the company's AGM yesterday.


Hamdan Mohamad
Ranhill was teaming up with Australia-based pipeline specialist McConnell Dowell Corp Ltd for the SSGP bid, he said.

The two projects, worth a total of about RM3bil, is part of east Malaysia's petroleum development programme.

SOGT, a Petroliam Nasional Bhd project, comprises an onshore gas terminal and a gas compression station. The SSGP, on the other hand, involves the construction of a 500km pipeline from Sabah to Kompleks LNG Petronas in Bintulu.

Hamdan said Ranhill's current order book for oil and gas projects totalled US$1bil, and that it would like to pursue more such contracts.

Meanwhile, Ranhill had entered into a settlement agreement on the Melut Basin oil development project in Sudan, which comprised a combination of change and variation orders worth US$55mil, Hamdan said.

The contract included the provision for building water-injection facilities estimated at to cost US$167mil, he added.

"In addition, they gave us an expansion contract of US$150mil to expand the plant to produce 300,000 barrels per day of oil from the current 220,000," Hamdan said, noting that "the company hopes to break even" with these orders.

Additionally, Ranhill aimed to build six more water plants in China, with an installed treatment capacity of 50 million to 100 million litres (MLD) per day each and a 600-MLD water plant in Shanghai, making a total of 1,000 MLD, he said. He also noted that the group had recently signed two similar deals in China.

"We raised local funding and we provide our own technology to process both water and waste water," he said.

On its venture in India, Hamdan said Ranhill was working with the Tata and Subhash groups to source investment in water-treatment plants and consultancy work in non-revenue water.

On the Senai-Pasir Gudang-Desaru Expressway, chairman Tan Sri Sallehuddin Mohamad said: "We hope to complete the whole superstructure bridge by November next year."

Currently, Ranhill's engineering, procurement, construction and commissioning order book totalled RM15bil, of which 85% are overseas ventures.

"Our focus now is on Libya, Sudan, India, China and the Middle East," Hamdan said.

URL: http://biz.thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?f...99&sec=business