The Star Online: Business
The Star Online: Business |
- FBM KLCI up in early trade, RHB Capital spikes on potential merger talks
- Oil price rises on weaker US$
- US stocks end a down month on an up note
| FBM KLCI up in early trade, RHB Capital spikes on potential merger talks Posted: 31 May 2011 06:26 PM PDT PETALING JAYA: RHB Capital Bhd shares surged early Wednesday, on news that banking heavyweights Malayan Banking Bhd (Maybank) and CIMB Group Holdings Bhd have been given the nod to start merger talks with RHB Capital. At 9.14am, RHB Capital surged 94 sen to RM10.16. Bank Negara yesterday gave the nod to both Maybank and CIMB to separately commence talks with RHB Capital and its substantial shareholders for a possible merger of the businesses of the two banking groups. This was announced by Maybank and CIMB in separate announcements to Bursa Malaysia yesterday. The approval to commence negotiations is valid for three months from Bank Negara's letter dated May 31, 2011. Meanwhile, the FBM KLCI up 2.10 points to 1,560.39 at 9.02am. Regional markets mostly up. Tokyo's Nikkei 225 slipped 0.13% to 9,680.74 and Shanghai's A index fell 0.17% to 2,738.92 Taiwan's Taiex Index rose 0.60% to 9,042.65 while Seoul's Kospi Index dipped 0.01% to 2,142.17, with Singapore's Straits Times Index gaining 0.04% to 3,161.15. Nymex crude oil rose 30 cents to US$103.00 per barrel. Spot gold fell US$4.93 to US$1,530.88 per ounce. The ringgit was quoted at 3.011 to the US dollar. Full Feed Generated by Get Full RSS, sponsored by USA Best Price. |
| Posted: 31 May 2011 06:12 PM PDT NEW YORK: Oil rose Tuesday after a sharp drop in the dollar and reports of pipeline problems in the Midwest. West Texas Intermediate crude, the U.S. benchmark, added $2.11 to settle at at $102.70 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. In London, Brent crude added $2.05 to settle at $116.73 on the ICE Futures exchange. The dollar lost ground to the euro as the European Union discussed whether to send more financial aid to help Greece's economy. Oil is priced in dollars and tends to rise as the greenback weakens and makes crude cheaper for investors holding foreign currency. TransCanada temporarily shut down the Keystone Pipeline after noticing a minor spill at a pump station in Kansas. The pipeline delivers a half million barrels of oil per day to the U.S. from Alberta. It feeds supplies to Cushing, Oklahoma, the delivery point for benchmark crude, and a sustained shutdown could push prices higher this week. "We hope to have it up and running within a few days," TransCanada spokesman Terry Cunha said. It's the second shutdown of the pipeline this month. A weak consumer confidence reading cooled slowed the rise in oil. The Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index for May showed the lowest reading since November. Economists said consumers were losing confidence due to a choppy rebound in the job market, high gas prices and an ongoing slump in home values. "That's a definite negative," analyst Jim Ritterbusch said. "When they're not confident, consumers don't buy as much. And they make up 70 percent of the economy." Gasoline prices have been falling most of the month after hitting a three-year record at $3.9845 per gallon ($1.05 a liter). Pump prices are still $1.048 a gallon more expensive than the same time last year. In other Nymex contracts, heating oil rose 5.16 cents to settle at $3.053 per gallon, gasoline gained 1.9 cents to $3.0503 per gallon and natural gas rose 14.8 cents to $4.666 per 1,000 cubic feet. - AP Latest business news from AP-Wire Full Feed Generated by Get Full RSS, sponsored by USA Best Price. |
| US stocks end a down month on an up note Posted: 31 May 2011 06:09 PM PDT NEW YORK: That screeching sound you heard in May? That was the stock market. While the month ended with four days of gains in most of the indexes, concerns that high gas prices, tornadoes and flooding in the South, the post-natural disaster slowdown in Japan and a growing debt crisis in Europe sent the Standard and Poor's 500 stock index down 1.4 percent in May. That decline followed a 2.85 percent gain in April, which followed gains that set the fastest pace in the first quarter since 1998. Before this month, stocks were boosted by higher corporate earnings, increased business spending and a global economic expansion. May was the first down month for the S&P since August 2010. Other risky assets also saw declines in May, following a year of increases. The prices of commodities like oil, cattle and coffee fell by an average of 7 percent. Meanwhile, Treasury bond prices, which tend to rise when investors fear that the economy is slowing, rose to near their highest level of the year. For Tuesday, the stock market ended higher, on signs that Germany might drop its demands for an early rescheduling of Greek bonds, paving the way for a deal that could prevent Greece from defaulting on its debt. The S&P index gained 14.10, or 1.1 percent, to 1,345.20. The Dow Jones industrial average added 128.21, or 1 percent, to 12,569.79. And the Nasdaq composite rose 38.44, or 1.4 percent, to 2,835.30. These gains came in spite of another grim report on the U.S. housing market. Home prices in in 12 of the 20 cities tracked by the Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller index dropped in March to the lowest levels since the housing bubble popped in 2006. "Home prices continue on their downward spiral with no relief in sight," said David Blitzer, chairman of the index committee at S&P Indices. Oliver Pursche, president of Gary Goldberg Financial Services, said the report didn't hurt investors' confidence much because their expectations for the U.S. housing market were already low. "There's no shock factor there," Pursche said. "We knew it was going to be bad, and it is." Even so, the month of May was an unhappy one for stock holders for the second year in a row - although the losses weren't nearly as bad as they were last year. Just like 2010, when the S&P index lost 8 percent in May, Greece said that it will need outside help from other European Union countries to meet its debt payments. And in the U.S., the domestic economy sputtered again. Thirteen economic indicators, ranging from personal spending to manufacturing orders, were weaker than economists had predicted, a sign investors and analysts say indicates that high gas prices are slowing growth more than anticipated. Some investors believe that May was merely a short-term dip_and given the news of the month, markets could have seen bigger declines. "(Stocks) held up reasonably well this month, given all that the market had to digest in terms of worries," said David Kelly, chief market strategist at J.P. Morgan Funds. Kelly and others say that the lingering good feelings from a strong earnings season, where the average company beat Wall Street's quarterly earnings expectations by more than 6 percent, was part of the reason the broad market didn't decline further. Another reason, Kelly says is that the belief "in the market that any of the slowdown in the economy is relatively temporarily." One-time factors like bad weather and problems with getting parts from Japan, along with a sharp upturn in investments by private companies, all suggest that the economy will continue to grow this year despite recent signs of weakness, Kelly said. The few industries that performed well in May were so-called defensive ones like health care and utilities that have stable earnings because the items they sell are not luxuries. Consumer staples - companies like PepsiCo and Costco Wholesale that sell everyday items like soda and diapers - rose nearly 2.5 percent, the most out of any group. June should provide some answers as to whether the economy truly is slowing down. Economists expect that Friday's jobs report will show that the unemployment rate fell to 8.9 percent in May from 9.0 percent in April. And at the end of the month, the Federal Reserve will end its bond-buying stimulus program, QE2. The program has kept interest rates low, which makes owning riskier assets, like stocks or commodities, more attractive. Some investors believe that the end of the Fed's stimulus program is already reflected in stock prices. "The market looks ahead six to nine months, so if the market thought the end of QE2 was going to be harmful we would have felt it already," said Peter Maris, the founder of Resource Financial Group, a financial adviser in Wilmette, Ill. The S&P index has risen 7 percent this year, before dividends. At this point would take an 87.56 point drop for it to turn negative for the year. The Dow would need to drop 992.28 points to erase its 8.6 percent gain for the year. - AP
|
| You are subscribed to email updates from The Star Online: Business To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610 | |
0 ulasan:
Catat Ulasan