It looks like there's not much plump and juicy peaks for the plucking...
The peaks are becoming smaller, but still very delicious...
Hulumas ( Date: 04-Oct-2011 19:56) Posted:
One word: SELL !
pharoah88 ( Date: 04-Sep-2011 15:45) Posted:
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Buffeted Buffett?Naturally, with the scale of the reported layoffs and the degree of possible reorganization of BYD, many are asking how the company’s most famous shareholder will be impacted, or what preventative measures he might take?
In 2008, Warren Buffett invested 232 mln usd in what at the time was around a 10% equity stake in the automaker.
Image: Windsor Publishing
That the chief of Berkshire Hathaway was willing to put such a big chunk in a relatively little known firm (to outsiders, at the time) amid the height of the global financial crisis, quickly turned BYD into an overnight sensation.
Not too long after Buffett’s investment, BYD's shares rose from
8 hkd per share to around 85 hkd, a staggering
10-fold increase,
However, with the drastic slowdown in Mainland China’s once super-revved domestic auto sales, and BYD certainly not escaping the downturn undented, many are asking whether Buffett – famous for his long positions and strategic long-term thinking – will continue to hold onto his BYD shares.
PRC netizens are split on Buffett’s possible strategies.
Some believe he will hold onto the BYD shares and use the case as an example of what
not to do during his well-attended annual investor conferences in Omaha, Nebraska.
Others assert he will hold onto the BYD shares no matter what, out of principle, and await a respectable rebound before possible selling, saying his commitment to the investment will go down with the ship – or car – if necessary.
And like with most of the long positions held by Buffett, only time will tell if his investment decision was wise.
Troubled PRC automaker BYD eyes
70% staff cuts...
Will Buffett bail too?
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Written by Andrew Vanburen (China Correspondent)
Tuesday, 06 September 2011 07:13
BYD Co (HK: 1211), not long ago the darling of China’s auto sector and the greatest hope for the country’s alternative fuel vehicles, is now sporting a share price 67% lower than year earlier levels and is planning massive layoffs to turn things around.
Will key investor Warren Buffett with a 10% share finally have a high-profile loser in his highly vaunted portfolio? Read more...
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Development charges go up
Hike is highest in the industrial sector
by Linette Lim
04:46 AM Sep 01, 2011
SINGAPORE - The generally healthy property market over the past six months and external developments have led to higher than expected revisions to the rate for development charges (DC).
Yesterday, the Ministry of National Development (MND) - as part of its half-yearly review - released the latest DC rates, with charges for non-landed residential property increased by an average of 12.1 per cent while commercial property charges increased 21.7 per cent on average.
The industrial sector saw the highest revision with rates going up by an average of 30.9 per cent.
The increases in the rate of DC - the tax payable by the developer when a property site is developed into a more valuable project - will take effect from today.
Jones Lang LaSalle head of research (South East Asia) Chua Yang Liang said: " This latest round of DC revision has been higher than market expectations. Although there is sufficient empirical evidence to support the increase, the inflationary pressure that is building up in certain sectors of the property market could be another reason."
He added: " The outflow of funds from the United States into Asia and localised policy shifts that drove investors into other non-residential sectors, are probably enough reasons to warrant the Chief Valuer to pursue a more aggressive or tighter policy stance on DC revision, as a tool to contain the pressure."
Colliers International director (research & advisory) Chia Siew Chuin noted that it was unsurprising that sectors with the higher increase in DC rates were in the fringe and outlying locations.
She added that this was " likely to have been the result of the recent sale" of a non-landed site at Bendemeer Road/Whampoa East under the Government Land Sales (GLS) programme.
The site was sold at S$774 per sq ft per plot ratio - " a 141.1-per-cent premium above the imputed land cost for the sector" , Ms Chia pointed out.
For the commercial use group, the average increase is 21.7 per cent, almost 10 percentage points above the average recorded in the previous revision in March.
The largest spike is in the Paya Lebar Way/Eunos/Sims Ave area at 31.7 per cent.
The largest increase in the non-landed category was 39 per cent for the Serangoon Road, Whampoa, Bendemeer Road areas.
Analysts noted that higher development charges may put a damper on enbloc transactions as it will raise costs for developers.
International Property Advisor chief executive officer Ku Swee Yong said that the segment of people " most affected right now" would be the owners of apartments and condos that are poised for collective sale " as developers bidding for those sites will have to consider the increase in DC" .
Industrial property DC rates in the Tuas/Pioneer Road/Jurong/Sungei Kadut/Mandai Estate/Woodlands area saw an increase of 55 per cent.
Cushman & Wakefield Singapore vice-chairman Donald Han noted that the industrial market saw rampant land sales activity in the last six months.
Said Mr Han: " At the back of vibrant developers' strata title industrial sales - which saw capital values increasing by 22 per cent for the whole of last year and 16 per cent for first seven months of this year - developers have been busy chasing for development sites, which attributed to the rise in DC rates."
Still, Mr Han said the increase in DC rates has little or no impact on industrial developments on GLS sites.
" GLS will continue to be of interest to developers as industrial projects are immune to shorter leasehold tenure of 30 to 60 years," he added.
Don't get seduced by analysts' darlings
The Straits Times
Sep 4, 2011
small change
Investors who buy these four stocks could end up kissing their money goodbye
By Andy Mukherjee
If you have cash stuffed in your mattress or bank account, and if you are itching to put it to work in the markets, let me try to talk you out of it.
For choppy markets to get better, sentiment must first hit rock bottom.
Like it did in the first quarter of 2009.
Conditions are different now.
Analysts are still overly bullish.
They are beginning to turn nervous, but are far from throwing in the towel.
In this column, I'll discuss four stocks as examples. These stocks have fallen between 12 and 16 per cent in the past month, underperforming the Straits Times Index, but analysts are overwhelmingly sanguine about their prospects.
What if the analysts' optimism is misplaced?
A disclaimer before we proceed: I have selected the stocks based on some rules that I'll shortly explain.
I don't have any position in them, nor do I intend to take any.
If these stocks outperform the index over the next six months, well, I'll have egg on my face.
And if I'm proved right in my scepticism, I'll start holding investment seminars (just kidding).
Let's move on.
What the four stocks have in common is this:
Analysts are in love with them.
Their ardour is beginning to cool, but it'll be a while before the consensus opinion on these stocks turns negative. At that point, they'll become interesting again.
Measuring love is simple.
I required consensus estimates for the target price - the analyst community's opinion of a stock's fair value - to be at least 25 per cent higher than the current price.
But how do we know whether analysts are beginning to feel nervous about these companies that they are so enamoured of?
With that in mind, I pared down the list to retain only those stocks on which at least twice as many analysts have cut their full-year earnings forecasts in the past month as have increased them.
I looked at only those Singapore-listed stocks for which 'buy' ratings by analysts, compiled by Bloomberg, comprised at least 60 per cent of all recommendations in the past year.
Further, to exclude illiquid stocks that aren't widely covered by analysts, I whittled down the list to only those that have secured at least 10 'buy' ratings from analysts in the past year.
At the end of this exercise, I was left with four names.
Noble Group
Analysts are still wildly bullish about Noble, which supplies energy, food and mining products where these are needed. The consensus estimate for the stock suggests a 35 per cent upside.
But some cracks in confidence are beginning to emerge. Ms Zuo Li at IIFL Capital cut her earnings growth forecast for Noble by 12 to 20 per cent for the current year and the next two.
Keep an eye on the European money markets. As the 2008 crisis clearly showed, when money markets dry up, trade - and traders - get hit.
Noble shares fell more than 80 per cent between June and October 2008.
Indofood Agri Resources
Indofood Agri, which produces and refines palm oil, is another analysts' darling languishing in the dumps.
With the hiving off of Salim Ivomas Pratama, which was separately listed in May, the company is sitting on 6.1 trillion Indonesian rupiah (S$860 million) in cash, with little clarity from management on future expansion. Meanwhile, the profit accruing to Indofood shareholders grew less than expected in the June quarter, according to a Nomura report.
Still, analysts are hopeful.
The consensus estimate for the stock's target price is about 33 per cent higher than the current price.
Genting Singapore
'Spurned'.
That's how Ms Magdalene Choong at PhillipCapital titled her analysis of the casino operator's 'exceptionally weak' second-quarter earnings.
Chip volumes declined 13 per cent from the previous three months' as high rollers took a breather to nurse the previous quarter's losses. Or they may have gone to Marina Bay Sands to gamble the night away.
According to Ms Choong, who downgraded the stock to 'hold' last month, the outlook for the stock does not look enticing.
'In view of the downwards revision on GDP as well as rising risks from Western economies, we further reduce Genting's valuation,' she wrote.
Overall, though, the analyst community is still gung-ho on Genting.
After as many as 12 downgrades in the past month on the company's full-year earnings potential, the consensus target price is still 28 per cent higher than the market price.
The longer the analyst community stays on the wrong side of the market, the more quickly it can surrender.
DBS
With the United States Federal Reserve promising to keep overnight interest rates at about zero until mid-2013, local-currency interbank rates in Singapore, to which the domestic banks' lending rates are pegged, have collapsed. One key rate - the swap offer rate - has even turned negative.
'This development has dashed whatever hope there was in the market earlier about net interest margin bottoming out and recovering next year,' Kim Eng Securities analyst James Koh wrote in a recent research note, cutting his rating on all three Singapore banks to 'sell'.
The consensus in the analyst community, however, is that DBS Group's fair value is 28 per cent higher than what the stock currently sells for.
If the Singapore economy slips into a technical recession this quarter and loan growth slows markedly, then the lingering optimism on DBS could dissipate. That could be risky for investors.
For now, the cash in your mattress is quite safe where it is.
If you really want to do something with your money, consider stocks with high dividend yields.
andym@sph.com.sg
My Value Investing Blog:
http://sgmusicwhiz.blogspot.com/
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