The Star Online: Business
The Star Online: Business |
- FBM KLCI down in early trade
- Samsung considers legal action over Apple's new iPhone
- UBS faces dual attack in parliament after trading loss
| Posted: 19 Sep 2011 07:39 PM PDT KUALA LUMPUR: The FBM KLCI was down 3.08 points, or 0.22% at 1,410.04 in early trade on Tuesday, dragged down by selling pressure in blue-chip stocks as investors took the cue from regional markets and having factored in the downgrade in Italy's sovereign credit rating. Turnover was 163.61 million shares done valued at RM235.96 million. There were 144 gainers, 232 losers and 220 stocks unchanged. HwangDBS Vickers Research said in a report issued today that negative vibes from the west would continue to dog investors' sentiment across Asia today. "Major U.S. equity indices fell between 0.4% and 1.0% last night. Also, the Dec month Dow Jones Industrial Average futures contract extended its losses hovering at a 140-point discount to the spot rate this morning following a downgrade in Italy's sovereign credit rating (by Standard & Poor's)," it said. Therefore, more selling pressures can be expected on the local bourse today. The benchmark FBM KLCI could pull back further, possibly heading towards the psychological mark of 1,400 ahead. Hoping to buck the bearish market forces is Bandar Raya Developments, which has proposed to distribute a net cash dividend per share of 80 sen following a divestment exercise of investment properties to its major shareholder. Meanwhile, most regional peers were down in early trade with Shanghai SE Composite losing 0.14% to 2,434.31, Nikkei 225 shedding 1.40% to 8,739.74 and the Hang Seng index down 0.79% to 18,768.27. Singapore's STI bucked the overall regional market trend, by inching up 0.12% to 2,760.52 The ringgit against the US dollar was quoted at 3.1372 against yesterday's close at 3.1157. |
| Samsung considers legal action over Apple's new iPhone Posted: 19 Sep 2011 05:59 PM PDT SEOUL (Reuters) - Samsung Electronics Co is considering legal action to ban sales of Apple's new iPhone, a source familiar with the matter said on Tuesday, in what could be its strongest step to defend against claims by the U.S. firm that the South Korean firm had copied its product designs. The source declined to elaborate further on where Samsung planned to take legal actions and the Maeil Business Newspaper reported that the South Korean firm may seek injunction request on Apple's new iPhone in Europe. Samsung said it would not comment on ongoing legal issues. The two technology firms have been locked in intensifying legal battles in nine countries over their flagship smartphone and tablet products. The move comes after Apple successfully blocked Samsung from selling its latest tablets in Germany and some smartphone models in the Netherlands and forced its rival to indefinite delay launching new tablets in Australia. After Apple's latest legal victory in Germany earlier this month, Samsung said it would take all available legal options. Apple has not produced a new version of its best-selling iPhone for more than a year. The product is crucial for the world's No.1 smartphone maker to keep its strong sales momentum as Samsung is quickly closing on the gap with its Galaxy line of products. Apple sold 20.3 million iPhones in the second quarter and Samsung shipped just one million units less than that. Media reports have said Apple's product will go one sale in October. Apple first sued Samsung in April, claiming its strongest competitor had "slavishly" copied its product designs, and Samsung had since counter-sued, arguing Apple infringed on its mobile technologies. Samsung is also a major supplier of chips and displays for Apple's smartphones and tablet products. |
| UBS faces dual attack in parliament after trading loss Posted: 19 Sep 2011 05:56 PM PDT ZURICH (Reuters) - The Swiss parliament piled pressure on the nation's biggest banks on Monday in the wake of UBS AG's $2.3 billion loss from rogue trading, as a center-left party pushed for a ban on risky investment banking and a plan to raise capital requirements passed the lower house. Social Democrat lawmaker Susanne Leutenegger Oberholzer narrowly failed to get enough support for her proposal to reopen debate on tough new capital measures for UBS and Credit Suisse so that a ban on investment banking could be added. The plan to force the banks to hold more capital than under global rules so that they can be shielded from future crises was passed, and the Social Democrats have the option of bringing a separate piece of legislation on the proposed ban. "What the latest debacle of UBS in London shows is that regulation must go further as fast as possible. Investment banking must be banned for systemically-important banks and proprietary trading must be massively limited," the party said in a statement. UBS has kicked off an internal investigation into the catastrophic failure of its risk systems that led to the equity trading loss, which was discovered last week. UBS said its board of directors had set up a committee chaired by independent director David Sidwell, former chief financial officer at Morgan Stanley, to conduct a probe into the trades and the bank's control systems. "External expectations are that the investigation should take weeks and not months," a UBS insider told Reuters. "The internal investigation will be coordinating with the regulators on their probe." London trader Kweku Adoboli was charged on Friday with fraud and false accounting dating back to 2008. CAPITAL HIT UBS said on Sunday it remains one of the world's best capitalized banks, even though the $2.3 billion loss had set it back in its efforts to build up its capital to meet new regulatory requirements. In Britain, where similar reforms to separate risky investment banking from commercial banking are in the works, Business Secretary Vince Cable said the UBS scandal illustrated the need for change. "If there were any doubts about the need for radical reform, the UBS rogue trader has dispelled them," Cable told delegates at his Liberal Democrat party's conference. The Swiss parliament rejected the bid to reopen the debate so that an investment banking ban could be discussed by 55 to 42 with six abstentions. The loss is a heavy blow to the reputation of Switzerland's biggest bank, which had just started to recover after its near collapse during the financial crisis and a damaging U.S. investigation into its aiding wealthy Americans to dodge taxes. Chief Executive Oswald Gruebel, brought out of retirement in 2009 to turn the bank around, said the alleged fraud would have consequences for strategy and possibly also for himself. The UBS source said there was no indication that others were involved in the affair, and the global synthetic equities team in which Adoboli worked was still operating, but added that members of the team would have to stop trading while answering questions as part of the investigation. UBS shares closed down 1.9 percent at 10.07 francs, but still outperformed a 3.4 percent slide on the European banking stocks index, as traders noted the stock had already fallen sharply after last week's news. ANGRY BANKERS UBS is now widely expected by analysts to speed up an overhaul of its investment bank that had been planned for announcement on November 17, though big shareholders have signaled they could wait until that date while the bank completes its internal investigation, according to the inside source. An investment manager whose company holds shares in UBS said he had detected anger within UBS's private banking operations at the turn of events. "I talked to several senior private bankers, and one told me how he spent last week with compliance arguing about a 1,500-franc accounting difference ... And then some junior investment banking trader loses 2 billion. "It creates serious ill will among their clients. So internally there will be some momentum to resize IB." Along with Gruebel, Carsten Kengeter, head of the investment banking unit, may be in the firing line. "We estimate that the investment banking chief Carsten Kengeter ... will be sacrificed after this scandal," said analyst Dirk Becker at broker Kepler. |
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