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Interesting-ly in Uni-Asia saga....The shit has been throw wide openly. Who is to be blame on who.....Greed is definately breeding breed, Since last Monday when securities house starting self imposed restriction.
In the 1st place, when everyone is very busy making $$$. There's a total disregard and interest " Bo Chup" and "Te Da Ah Pa', never care less attitude on the part of unsuspecting, speculating retailers. Who is to blame..........
So now...words from SIAS Chief.
Meanwhile, 'I would ask the retail investors to be calm and allow SGX to complete its investigations and SIAS to look into this matter further with the broking houses,' he said.
'If they need legal advice, SIAS will be more than happy to help them ... at the appropriate time.'
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| Trading curbs action lies with brokers: SGX Conrad Tan Sat, Oct 20, 2007 The Business Times (SINGAPORE) Singapore Exchange (SGX) said yesterday it does not regulate how and when broking firms impose trading curbs on stocks. 'These are actions that the individual broking house would take to manage its credit exposure, its stock exposure,' said SGX's head of risk management and regulation Yeo Lian Sim. 'SGX does not specifically have rules on this, nor would we micro-manage the companies in the actions that they take.' She was speaking to reporters at a briefing convened after 33 retail investors turned up at SGX's premises in Shenton Way yesterday afternoon. They wanted to know why some broking houses had imposed trading restrictions on shares in Uni-Asia Finance Corp before a drastic drop in the stock price earlier this week, and if there was foul play involved. A commentary in BT on Thursday had asked if advance knowledge of such trading curbs at broking houses should be considered price-sensitive information, and whether such decisions should be regulated accordingly. 'They (the retail investors) demanded investigation. They wanted to know whether there was any foul play and why the curb was imposed and why SGX did not intervene,' said David Gerald, president of the Securities Investors Association of Singapore (SIAS), who was also at yesterday's briefing. SGX's head of markets Gan Seow Ann had contacted Mr Gerald and asked him to talk to the investors. Most of them 'appeared to be contra players', said Mr Gerald. Contra traders buy and sell stocks within three days without having to pay any cash up front, aiming to make a profit without using capital. 'They're unhappy about the fact that a trading curb was imposed and suddenly the price fell. They complained that they had lost a lot of money,' he said. Investment company Uni-Asia listed on SGX on Aug 17. After a lacklustre start, its share price began to climb rapidly late last month, more than tripling from 78 cents on Sept 27 to $2.50 on Friday last week. Then on Monday the price hit an intra-day high of $2.79 before plunging to close at $1.95. The sudden collapse was attributed to broking houses imposing restrictions requiring customers to put cash up front to trade the counter. Yesterday, Ms Yeo said the stock 'has been on our radar screen since late September when the price started moving up' and SGX is continuing to monitor it for unusual trading activity. Pressed for details, she said: 'We are doing what we normally do for all companies. We don't discuss individual investigations in public. When we look at the trading, we will investigate for market manipulation or insider-trading. That's part of our normal modus operandi.' 'We have also got in touch with the issue manager for this counter, DBS Bank. They have also looked into the matter and they have not discovered anything that requires disclosure,' said Ms Yeo. 'There is of course the question of was there any manipulation. We will also investigate those possibilities just as we do all the time for all the market trading.' Mr Gerald said he will meet broking houses on Monday to find out why they had imposed the curbs. Meanwhile, 'I would ask the retail investors to be calm and allow SGX to complete its investigations and SIAS to look into this matter further with the broking houses,' he said. 'If they need legal advice, SIAS will be more than happy to help them ... at the appropriate time.' |