SG Market (6 Mar 14)

Morning Bites US stocks were little changed with the S&P 500 closing almost flat at 1,873, just shy of the all-time high set on Wednesday, as investors brushed off data from the Fed’s Beige Book while keeping close tabs on developments in Ukraine. According to the Beige Book, the US economy grew even as harsh winter slowed hiring, with eight districts reporting improved levels of activity, but in most cases the increases were characterized as modest to moderate. Homebuilders were weak following Hovnanian's big earnings miss, while US banks were sharply higher ahead of stress tests, with some analysts expecting an improve in bank capital levels. Regional markets opened mixed this morning, with the Nikkei inching up 0.2% and Kospi down 0.2% as at 8.40a.m Taking the cue from US, the STI is expected to open relatively flat , with any rise likely to be capped at the trend channel resistance found near the 3,150 level, with downside support at 3,092 (50d simple moving average) Stocks to watch: *GLP: Entered into a conditional agreement to acquire 34 industrial and logistics assets in Brazil for US$1.36b. The acquisition is expected to be immediately earnings accretive and would substantially raise GRP’s completed portfolio in Brazil to 2.6m sqm (from 1.4m sqm). *Global Yellow Pages: Proposed placement of up to 300m new shares (or a maximum of 15% on enlarged share capital post-rights issue) at $0.07 (31.4% discount on last traded price). The subscriber, Guobuli International Investment, is an investment holding company and subsidiary of Guobuli Group based in Tianjin, China, which owns a chain of well-known fine dining restaurants selling steamed buns. Net proceeds of between $15.2-20.8m will be used to further fund the group's proposed acquisition of the "Gloria Jean's Coffees" and "It's A Grind" brands. *SunMoon Food Company: Proposed to undertake a share consolidation of every one hundred ordinary shares into one consolidated share. The share consolidation is expected to rationalise the share capital of the company by reducing the number of shares outstanding, and the trading price per consolidated share. This will reduce the fluctuation in magnitude of the company’s share price and market capitalisation, and the percentage transaction cost for trading in each board lot of shares. *AusGroup: Prominent local investor Alan Wang who runs the high profile fund Asdew Acquisitions purchased another 3.02m shares @ $0.247 via market transactions on the 17th Feb, 27th Feb and 4th Mar, raising his stake to 6.31% from 5.79%. *Asean Economics: According to data compiled by Bank of America Merrill Lynch, FY13 saw Asean overtook China in regards to inward foreign direct investments (FDI), climbing 7% to US$128.4b versus the US$117.6b of China. Merrill Lynch expects the trend to continue over the next few years led by favourable demographics and competitive wages.