SG Market

SG Market: Spore shares likely to remain rangebound in subdued trade as the market continues to wind down towards the year end, with perhaps a slight negative bias after Wall Street's mixed showing Monday and amid weaker regional bourses. The STI closed +0.5% Mon at 3159, shrugging off the potential negative catalyst of China's rate hike; however it ended well off its highs, showing investors are happy to take quick profits on any gains…

Market volume likely to remain modest (only 581m shares traded yday), and it seems unlikely that the index will break out of UOBKH expected 3120-3200 yr-end range. Company-specific news flow starting to return.
Keppel Corp may rise after announcing more contract wins, adding $240m to its 2010 offshore orderbook.

Think Environmental may be in focus on its Mali buy, which makes it the only main board listed company in Singapore with gold mining assets.

Stocks to watch:
* Keppel Corp: secures 3 conversion and bespoke shipbuilding contracts worth a total of S$240m, boosting O&M 2010 orderbook to S$3.2b.
* SGX: proposes to expand membership to foreign brokers based abroad. If successful, move will expand the pool of int’l participation, and improve mkt efficiency and boost liquidity, trading volume.
* Think Environment (TTEC): may see interest after entering into conditional S&P to acquire 70% in Mornington, which would make TTEC the first mainboard-listed co here with gold mining assets. Still, this concept stock is not for the faint-hearted, due to the significant execution risk involved.
* Commodities: sector is set for a good year in 2011, with an anticipated price rally for raw materials likely to benefit upstream players and commodity supply chain managers. Noble Group and Olam tipped to be among the top beneficiaries. For upstream exposure, palm oil plantation firms Golden Agri, Indofood Agri and First Resources offer much promise.
* Rickmers: bags extension on ship's charter after Chilean customer, CSAV exercises option to renew lease for another 12mths wef 25 Mar ’11. Hire rate trebles to US$23.9k/day vs current US$8.3k/day.
* ECS: halted. The 4th-largest distributor of IT products in China by revenue plans to raise gross proceeds of US$50m from the listing of TDRs by 1H11.