29/04/2009 Market Update

	Close	Change	Low	High
STI	1,849	41	1,816	1,859

	Shares	Value
Volume Traded	1.52 billion	$1.16 billion

Things emerged rather unexpected today for our side. The market was cautious and quiet for the first half of the day. After lunch, we took the cue from Shanghai and Hong Kong as both markets rebounded strongly. Both markets closed nicely near their 20-day MA. We went as high as 1,859 before meeting temporary resistance from our 14-day MA and retreated back to close just a tad above our 20-day MA too.

From today's performance, it feels to me that the fund managers were doing some window-dressing. Now I wonder if there is still any chance of window-dressing effect tomorrow before we enter May next week. Now let's reassess the situation again after my thoughts yesterday. The WHO had reported new findings here: http://www.who.int/csr/don/2009_04_28/en/index.html

The actual death figure arose from the swine flu is actually only 7, not 152 as reported previously. Good news here, but we have 7 countries with confirmed human cases of swine flu infection. Maybe this explains why the markets were quite buoyant today. While if it is true that the swine flu issue had been over exaggerated, then the panic in the market yesterday could be the excessive fear which I was referring to. And this would imply that we missed the opportunity yesterday and now the markets are on their next wave upwards (because the US has managed to stay relatively resilient these few days). That is why I always advise that we don't try too hard to time the bottom, because we will only know it is the bottom on hindsight.

But it might be too early to conclude anything from here because things are still pretty uncertain. We never know if the swine flu will spring some unpleasant surprises at us again. Even if we can neglect the swine flu, essentially, we are somewhat still nervous about the US banks and the catchphrase, "Sell in May and go away." I guess we just have to remain alert here in order to jump onto some good opportunities. Meanwhile, I will suggest that if you have been trading at around these levels (1,800 - 1,850), close your trading positions early for the week and avoid the long weekend risk. If you have been seriously collecting some counters at the mentioned levels and are not considering to take profits yet, basically we will only buy more on pullbacks, i.e. at 1,780.

Kepland:
A few clients have been asking me about more details on its rights issue. I have just gotten them today.
CR will be until 11/05/2009. So if you buy/hold it till the end of 11/05/2009, you will be entitled to the "9 rights shares for every 10 existing shares held" issue.
XR will be on 12/05/2009. Depending on its closing price on 11/05/2009, the share price should be adjusted theoretically. But how it opens that day will depend on the market forces again.
For those who are entitled to the rights shares, the trading period for them in the open market is 19/05/2009 - 27/05/2009. After this period, if you are still holding on to the rights shares, you will have until 02/06/2009 to pay ($1.09 per share) and convert them into the mother share else they will expire.

Note: Kindly read my first post, About Myself, on my disclaimer. Thank you.