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The Star Online: Business

Tenaga rallies to highest since September 2010
U.S. researchers tracking flu through Twitter
Whitman Capital founder jailed for 2 years for insider trading

Tenaga rallies to highest since September 2010

Posted: 24 Jan 2013 05:52 PM PST

Published: Friday January 25, 2013 MYT 9:52:00 AM

KUALA LUMPUR: Tenaga Nasional Bhd's share price powered to RM7.19 in early trade on Friday, the highest since September 2010 after reporting a strong set of financial results amid a firm positive outlook for the power giant.

At 9.34am, it was up 11 sen to RM7.07. There were 4.92 million shares transacted at prices ranging from RM7.05 to RM7.19.

The FBM KLCI was up 6.75 points to 1,642. Turnover was 117.87 million shares valued at RM195.54mil. There were 180 gainers, 88 losers and 145 counters unchanged.

Maybank KE Research said it maintained its earnings forecast with a Hold recommendation and a discounted cashflow target price of RM7.50.

For the first quarter ended Nov 30, 2012 (excluding RM400mil worth of forex gains), Tenaga's pre-exceptional net profit of RM1.016bil (up 420% on-year, up 10% on-quarter) was 27% of its FY13 net profit forecast and 31% of consensus.

"Gas supply remains tight, although the power sector benefitted from lower coal prices," it said.

Meanwhile, CIMB Equities Research said Tenaga was bidding for 3GW of coal-fired capacity, and it believed the odds of winning are high.

"The stock remains a Trading Buy rather than an Outperform due to election risks," it said, as it maintained its target price of RM8.55.

CIMB Research believed strong demand, backed by Economic Transformation Programme projects, and new coal power plant capacity would catalyse the stock.

U.S. researchers tracking flu through Twitter

Posted: 24 Jan 2013 05:40 PM PST

NEW YORK: Researchers and computer scientists at Johns Hopkins University have devised a way to track cases of influenza across the United States using the microblogging site Twitter.

Twitter is full of tweets about the flu, which has been severe and reached epidemic proportions this year, but it has been difficult to separate tweets about the flu from actual cases.

"We wanted to separate hype about the flu from messages from people who truly become ill," said Mark Dredze, an assistant research professor in Johns Hopkins' department of computer science, who monitors public health trends by looking at tweets.

To solve the problem, Dredze and his colleagues developed a screening method based on human language-processing technologies that only delivers real-time information on actual flu cases and filters out the rest of the chatter on the public tweets in the United States.

The researchers at the Baltimore university tested the system by comparing their results with data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"In late December," Dredze said on Thursday, "the news media picked up on the flu epidemic, causing a somewhat spurious rise in the rate produced by our Twitter system. But our new algorithm handles this effect much better than other systems, ignoring the spurious spike in tweets."

The scientists, whose research was funded partly by the National Institutes of Health's Models of Infectious Disease Agent Study, have also produced maps of the United States that show the impact of the flu on each state.

Dredze said he hoped the system could be used to track the other illnesses. - Reuters

Whitman Capital founder jailed for 2 years for insider trading

Posted: 24 Jan 2013 05:36 PM PST

NEW YORK: California hedge fund manager Doug Whitman was sentenced on Thursday to two years in prison after he became the first defendant in a broad U.S. crackdown on insider trading to take the stand to convince jurors of his innocence.

U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff in Manhattan imposed the sentence, which was less than half the 4-1/4 to 5-1/4 years that federal prosecutors wanted.

Whitman, the founder of Whitman Capital LLC in Menlo Park, was convicted in August of securities fraud and conspiracy over his involvement in two insider trading schemes between 2006 and 2009.

Prosecutors said one scheme resulted in more than $900,000 of illegal profit from trading the shares of Google Inc and video-conferencing company Polycom Inc.

They said the other involved "soft-dollar" payments used to obtain tips on and then trade in chipmaker Marvell Technology Group Ltd.

Rakoff said he believed Whitman "repeatedly perjured himself" on the stand and was "willfully, blatantly aware that he was trading on inside information every step of the way."

But he also noted evidence of the defendant's good character, including his assistance to children with learning disabilities, in imposing punishment.

Before learning his punishment, Whitman, 55, choked up as he read from a prepared statement in which the Atherton, California, resident alluded to the breakup of his 20-year marriage soon after he was charged.

"This has been the most painful and shaming experience of my life," Whitman said. "My father taught me not to cut corners and I tried to apply that to my life and my job ... My trial and my conviction have served as a rude and bitter wakeup call."

Whitman was also fined $250,000 and sentenced to one year of supervised release. He was granted bail pending an expected appeal. Federal prosecutor Chris LaVigne said the government will seek a forfeiture of $935,306 of illegal profit.

"Doug Whitman maintains his innocence and looks forward to vindication on appeal," his lawyer David Anderson said in a statement.

Whitman had sought a maximum prison term of six months.

Another of his lawyers, David Rody, told Rakoff that a long sentence was not needed for deterrence, and that prosecuting a "relatively smaller player" such as Whitman was enough to convince others in the hedge fund industry that "nobody's safe."

U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara in New York has obtained well over than 60 guilty pleas and verdicts since publicly revealing his insider trading probe in late 2009.

MULTIPLE INSIDERS

Prosecutors said Whitman tried to make illegal profit with the help of insiders such as Roomy Khan, a former Intel Corp employee who passed tips on Google and Polycom, and Karl Motey, a consultant who passed tips about Marvell.

Also testifying against Whitman was Wesley Wang, a former Whitman Capital employee who later worked at Steven Cohen's SAC Capital Advisors LP.

Khan, Motey and Wang have pleaded guilty to various crimes linked to insider trading. They have been cooperating with investigators with the hope of receiving lighter sentences.

As in many other recent insider trading prosecutions, the government's evidence against Whitman included telephone conversations secretly recorded by the FBI.

Khan was also a central figure in the government's prosecution of Galleon Group LLC hedge fund founder Raj Rajaratnam, a former billionaire who is now serving an 11-year prison sentence for insider trading.

Wang, meanwhile, has given the government information on as many as 20 people who may have been involved in insider trading, prosecutors have said. Among those he named was Dipak Patel, a former SAC portfolio manager.

Rakoff often imposes lesser sentences than the sentencing guidelines recommend and ignored the 10- to 12-month recommended lengthening of Whitman's sentence for perjury.

The judge said that provision could "chill" defendants from defending themselves under oath and be "an impediment to innocent people taking the stand and clearing their name."

In October, Rakoff sentenced former Goldman Sachs Group Inc director Rajat Gupta to two years in prison for tipping Rajaratnam - well below the eight to 10 years guideline range that prosecutors wanted. Gupta is appealing his conviction.

The case is U.S. v. Whitman, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 12-cr-00125. - Reuters

Kredit: www.thestar.com.my

Khamis, 24 Januari 2013