Joyless Ride

Today is one dull day. A joyless ride. Trading is relatively thin at 869 million shares worth 1.49 million ringgits. CI was better in the afternoon finishing at 1296.48 up 8.78 points. Losers still took pole position at 519 against 333 losers. BHIC continue to hog the limelight putting on RM1.99 followed by Transmile which gained 56 sen. MPI added 55 sen and Gamuda tacked on 45 sen. Losers were Stemlife losing 64 sen, TaAn dropping 40 sen and Guthrie losing 25 sen.

The shadow portfolio was mixed. Genting and BJ Sports Toto, RCE and JAKS managed to gain. Genting added 5 sen to RM7.50;BJ Sports Toto; 2 sen to RM4.84; JAKS added 2,5 sen to 90 sen and RCE notched up 2 sen to 88 sen. Metronic and Welli were the losers. Metronic lost 1 sen to 18.5 sen and Welli 3 sen to RM1.18. Resorts World lost 2 sen to RM3.78.

Dull trading day. Most Asian markets are up though. So that will bode well for Bursa. US Futures also did well and so can encourage investors on Wall Street tonight to be quick on the buy.

We await the unfolding drama.

Heartsong

More Defensive than Offensive

A stalemate; that's what we are gonna have with a downward bias. If more bearish news emerged if the afternoon, Bursa will go into a red swamp.

As usual, the positive mind-set pushes the index to more than 13 points in the first 20 minutes. Blue chips like banking stocks were a shade better. Situational stocks like KPS, KHSB and JAKS ran ahead. Then, they played limbo rock. Except for KPS most went down the limbo stick.

Index closed barely one point for the morning session.CI was at 1288.10 up 0.4 points. Gainers lag behind losers 126 to 691. Volume of traded stocks shrank to 428.6 million shares worth 1.57 billion ringgits.

Among gainers were BHIC which upped RM1.75 sen, Transmile gained 46 sen, P Perdana up 42 sen and Tanjong put on 30 sen. Losing were Stemlife lost 74 sen while KLK dropped 30 sen, PPB was also down 30 sen and SunCity slidded 26 sen.

The portfolio played limbo rock too. Genting finished unchanged at RM7.45 while Resorts went down 2 sen to RM3.78. BJ Sports Toto also lost 2 sen to RM4.80. RCE dropped 1.5 sen to 85 sen while JAKS was 1.5 sen down to 86 sen. Metronic also went down a sen to 18.5 sen while Welli was down 5 sen to RM1.1.6. Not much buying of Welli today. I think they know - sudah celik that the timing is not right for a price boosting announcement.

The afternoon is awaited and the chances of a good bull market run scenario is most remote.

Heartsong

More Fires on Monday?

Wall Street reduced losses on Friday because of the blood transfusion exercise into the financial system. News that central banks worldwide are pumping money into their financial systems to allay investors fears also helped. Bears retreated for a while. Will they pounced back on Monday night in New York and paw prices down again?

No one knows for sure. We are not out of the woods yet. But do not expect gung-ho strength buying. Fund managers may come in to buy some blue chips to bottom fish if they feel that the worse is contained. This will only mean that the index will remain put or incrementally better.

If Nikkei and Hang Seng perform well, Asian markets may move up. Expect situationals to sprint particularly KPS,JAKS and KHSB. Second grade blues may also jump. There will be broad based buying. This is the best scenario we can hope for.

If Asian markets play a ''wait and see'' game, the markets will be range-bound with a bias to lower prices. A weakening of the Asian barometers, Hang Seng, Nikkei and FTSE is indicative that the Dow would falter again tomorrow night. Do watch out for the futures, because they are the percussors.

Pray the market holds tomorrow.

Heartsong

Looking for Noah's Ark

Oh what a day! The investors have been put on tenterhooks. They expected the worst and sold their shares by the first twenty minutes and then market started going up again. Then it settled down and went up slightly towards the close. Damage was done. So what can these investors do, if they have sold at a loss. Their only chance is to buy back when the market should fall really badly. That would be like climbing back on Noah's ark. It means Bursa must take another hit A second drubbing will be required on the true blue chips like Maybank, Public Bank,AMMB, TNB, TM, Commerz and secondary blues like the construction and oil and gas stocks. Anything is possible now with this sub-prime and yen carrying trade roiling its vengeance in tandem across the globe.

CI was down to 1287.69,losing 25.7 points. Volume of shares traded was 1.05 billion worth 1.8 billion ringgits. There was 104 counters up and 835 down. among losers were sime which lost 20 sen and EONCap;30 sen. Putrajaya Perdana put on 38 sen, GBH;29 sen and KPS; 13 sen.

Looking at the shadow portfolio,only JAKS and Metronic closed unchanged at 87.5 sen. Genting lost 15 sen to close at RM7.45 while BJ Sports Toto shed 14 sen o RM4.82. Resorts World lost 6 sen while RCE Capital lost 4 sen to 86 sen. Welli closed down 3 sen to RM1.21.

The underlying tone of the market was weak as investors would not want to commit as it was Friday and they were also wary of what will happen to Wall Street in the near term.

Heartsong

Equities Armageddon

By far, the worse cause for market meltdowns globally.

Sub-primes and the yen carrying trade-manifestations of man's greed and the reckless pursuit of systemic weaknesses of the world's financial systems. These excesses have come home and we have to face the music and to swallow bitter medicine. As the world central banks come in to salvage what is left of the dignity of financial institutions, investors world-wide turned panicky and started unloading shares from the word, ''Go.''

Let me just give a general picture of what transpired in Bursa this morning.

The initial reaction was to sell down those stocks that you have made some money. Then you sell those that you would not like to carry some more because of uncertain trading conditions for the next few days. Cash is king and so you convert.

The performance-not really big fall. Some sell-down of blue chips caused the index to fell on the initial hour. Then market stabilised and bargain hunters came in to reduce losses on most counters. The true blues were not too bad. Let us look at some of them at the end of closing day.

True Blues

Maybank lost 40 sen
Commerz lost 40 sen
LPI lost 40 sen
EONCap lost 30 sen
DIGI lost 30 sen
Public Bank lost 20 sen.
Hong Leong Bank lost 15 sen

Second Grade Blues:

KNM lost 22 sen
Sime lost 20 sen
TNB lost 20 sen
Tanjong lost 20 sen
TM lost 15 sen
Proton lost 15 sen
UEM World lost 18 sen
DRBHicom lost 12 sen
YTL lost 40 sen
Gamuda lost 15 sen
MRCB lost 9 sen
Zelan lost 20 sen
Pelikan lost 27 sen
YTL Land lost 11 sen

I expect market to slide perhaps towards losing 30 points as more bad news filter into the market. As today is Friday,expect more selling in the last hour or so.

The market appears weak though situational water-play counters have once again run ahead in anticipation of a recovery this Monday. A pre-matured indicator?

The determinant factor will be how Dow Jones fare tonight. If Dow makes a small loss or a small gain, its effects on world market will be neutral. Then there will be hope for Bursa. Otherwise it will be the same fate that we will face as the day dawns on 13 August 2007.

PS: Market closed down 25.7 points to 1287.69 today.

Heartsong

Timing May Be Wrong Again

This morning break-out for Welli was certainly telling by the volume done and the number of block deals.

Roughly, we see:

• Two huge blocks of 1000 lot sizes
• One block of 600 lot size
• Five blocks of 500 lot size
• Eight blocks of 400 lot size
• Twenty blocks of 300 lot size
• Sixty blocks of 200 lots
• One hundred and Eighty-Five blocks of 100 lot size

That means big buyers particularly those in the know are collecting Welli dirt cheap.

Tomorrow is Friday and they have bought their fill. So they will allow Welli to fell tomorrow since Dow Jones will definitely be down and Friday is no buyers' day.

I really do not know whether Rashid Tang has any share-price boosting corporate news to announce urgently tomorrow. If they have and want too, it certainly will be the worst time to do so.

Meanwhile enjoy the loveliness of Nicole Kidman in that beautiful gown..........

Heartsong

No More False Start, Please

It was well-staged. Spread a rumour that a Chinese machinery company is buying a chunk of Welli stocks at RM4.00, and the market freaked out. The stock was chased up until RM3.20 on heavy volume buying with obviously churns by helpful syndicates. When queried by SC, the company played down the rumour saying they were uncertain who among the shareholders were selling. The stock plummeted to RM2.00 and floated around that price.

However, when the company was about to issue their 2006 Annual report and First Quarterly Report 2007, they were requested to refrain from releasing the reports because of dubious receivables. The shares of Welli fell to RM1.20 level.

Then news of the Hadhari Cattle Industry buying over 19% of Welli stocks hit the market. The shares was once more feverishly chased up to RM1.91. It settled at the RM1.70 level. The latest news of Welli buying over Dashi Chifeng shares in China as well as signing an agreement with the Inner Mongolian authorities to participate in gold mining, new town development and construction of tolled road businesses did not move the counter.

Slowly by attrition bargain hunting, the shares were eroded to the RM1.20 level. Then the sub-prime imbroglio hit world markets for 9 days. Welli went down to 99 sen.

Today, despite a sliding market. Welli held its own to tack on 12 sen to RM1.24 on heavy volume. Is something in the works? Some good news is definitely going to be announced very soon and those in the know are busy collecting them yesterday and today.

Will Welli break out and never look back? I hope so.

Heartsong