MESHIO.COM

If you are interested in oil-related funds, you might want to include this into your portfolio.

Via www.cimb-wealthadvisors.com…

CIMB-Principal Asset Management Berhad today announced the launch of the CIMB-Principal MENA Equity Fund, the first fund in Malaysia to offer investors exposure to large-cap stocks in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region.

The MENA Equity Fund allows investors to strategically capitalise on the oil-rich region’s prosperity to potentially enhance their investment portfolios. It has a benchmark target of 10% growth in net asset value (NAV) per annum. Datuk Noripah Kamso, Chief Executive of CIMB-Principal Asset Management Berhad, said: “The MENA region, which has previously been overlooked, potentially offers attractive returns as it trades at a price-to-earnings ratio of 16.4 times, a cheaper valuation compared to other emerging markets in Asia which are trading at 21 times (Source: Datastream, 2007).�

A friend texted me that reads ” Allianz Group Chief Economist says market crisis will calm down 2nd Quarter.”

Remembering what one of my investment guru taught me a few moons back, I texted him back, “One must realize that an economist has no business in the stock market. Historically, share prices has never been affected by the economist’s statement. Rather, it’s the daily traders and fund managers that dictates the order of the day”.

At the rate the market is behaving, I believe very much that the clueless retail traders would have taken a big loss and panic is kicking into the blood stream of these traders.

With every indices around the world affected by the bearish turn of events, I believe it’s just a matter of time that value stocks are traded at an attractive discount.

With major world markets and indices going southwards, this video might seem familiar to you :-)

Warning: Obscene language ahead. Lots of four-lettered word used.

Malaysia…

Diesel price much lower than other countries
Replying to a question from Datuk Seri Syed Razlan Syed Putra Jamalullail (BN-Arau) at Parliament, he said unsubsidised diesel would cost more than RM2 per litre. Instead, Malaysian consumers were paying RM1.58 per litre for subsidised diesel.

Shafie said diesel costs RM2.64 per litre in the US while it cost RM6.81 per litre in the UK, Portugal (RM5.22), France (RM4.89), Spain (RM4.65), Singapore (RM2.82), Indonesia (RM2.33) and Thailand (RM2.59).

“The government paid RM3.82 billion in the form of subsidies to industries in 2006. The fisheries sector received 1.16 million litres of diesel, while the transportation sector including passenger boat operators, received 5.46 million litres,” he said.

(Source: The Star Online)

TNB profit soars 88%
Stronger power demand growth and foreign exchange gains boosted Tenaga Nasional Bhd’s net profit by 88% to a record RM4.06bil for the financial year (FY) ended Aug 31, against RM2.16bil previously. Revenue rose 14% to RM23.3bil on a 13.6% increase in electricity sales. Earnings per share (EPS) expanded to 94.92 sen from 52.52 sen previously. TNB declared a final gross dividend per share of 16.3 sen, bringing the total for the year to 36.3 sen, representing 40% of the group’s free cashflow.

(Source: The Star Online)

Global…

China GDP up 11.5%
China’s economy, the biggest contributor to global growth, grew 11.5% in the third quarter, adding pressure for faster currency appreciation and higher borrowing costs to curb inflation and asset bubbles.

(Source: The Star Online)

Oil rises near US$89
Crude oil rose near US$89 in New York after the biggest drop in US imports since March caused an unexpected decline in inventories. Brent futures rose to a record in London.

(Source: The Star Online)

Buffett: US subprime market will affect consumers for two years
Warren Buffett said Thursday that he is still negative on prospects for the U.S. dollar and that problems in the U.S. subprime mortgage sector may continue to cause difficulties for some time. Buffett said that he remains “negative on the dollar relative to most major currencies.” The dollar has fallen against the yen, euro, British pound, India rupee and many other Asian and European currencies this year.

(Source: The Star Online)

U.S. stocks rally on Microsoft’s strong profit, Fed hopes
The euro, for example, has gained 8 percent against the dollar this year. U.S. stocks rallied Friday, and posted solid weekly gains, with technology stocks leading the charge after Microsoft Corp.’s earnings blew past analysts’ estimates while raised forecasts from Countrywide Financial Corp. helped soothe concerns about bad home loans.

(Source: MarketWatch.Com)

Dollar probes new depths against euro
The euro was trading at $1.4390, up from $1.4322 in late U.S. trading Thursday. In afternoon trading, it rose to $1.4393, its loftiest level since the European unit began trading in January 1999. The dollar was at C$0.9621 against the Canadian loonie, after earlier dropping to C$0.9587, its lowest level since 1974, as surging oil prices buoyed commodity-driven currencies.

(Source: MarketWatch.Com)

Amazing… You could have just doubled your money every single year if your portfolio is vested pretty much in these South America region…

And as we zoom all the way back home (Malaysia), we can see our homeland (circled in red) ranked on par with the Brits, way down from the bottom…

Local…
Ringgit strongest in 10 years
The ringgit rose to the strongest in almost a decade as gains in stocks worldwide boosted the appetite for emerging market securities. The currency extended a four-week gain after minutes from the Federal Reserve’s Sept 18 meeting published Tuesday allayed concerns over a housing slump in the US, Malaysia’s biggest export destination. Global funds turned net buyers of Malaysia’s stocks in the first half of the year, from net sales in the same period in 2006.

Plantation stocks buck cautious market
Plantation stocks bucked the cautious market at midday on Oct 11, led by Golden Hope and KL Kepong, spurred by the rally on crude palm oil (CPO) futures.

CPO futures surged RM40 to RM2,790 per tonne for October delivery and for December it jumped RM45 to RM2,690. Aseambankers Equity Research is maintaining its Overweight call on the sector as the fundamentals appear to have improved, as evidenced by rising exports and flattish production trends.

DRB-Hicom to buy Bank Muamalat
DRB-Hicom Bhd yesterday announced its plan to acquire the entire 70% stake in Bank Muamalat Malaysia Bhd from Bukhary Capital Sdn Bhd, a company controlled by billionaire Tan Sri Syed Mokhtar Al-Bukhary (pic), in a move to position the group as a major Islamic financial services provider.






Abroad…
Blue chips deliver flurry of bad news
Blue-chip companies including Boeing, Alcoa, Monsanto and Chevron delivered a flurry of bad news on Wednesday, stoking fears that the credit squeeze and US housing meltdown are taking a heavier toll on companies than expected. More disappointments from the blue chips still to report, which include General Electric, IBM and Yahoo, would also deal a blow to the market’s confidence in US companies’ ability to withstand the current economic and financial troubles.

Toyota warns on domestic sales
Toyota, Japan’s leading carmaker, warned on Tuesday that its domestic sales were likely to fall short of forecasts, highlighting a sharp downturn in demand. Katsuaki Watanabe, the company’s president, said domestic sales were likely to drop to around 1.65m, or 4 per cent below its target of 1.72m for the year.

Moody’s upgrade cheers Tokyo stocks
Japanese shares climbed on Thursday, getting a lift from a decision by Moody’s to upgrade the country’s sovereign debt rating and by the debut of Sony Financial, Japan’s biggest listing this year.

Northern Rock shares gain again in London
Northern Rock (UK:NRK: news, chart, profile) shares advanced 19.9% to 206 pence a share in the top London index, the first time they have breached the 200 pence-a-share level since the end of September.

Apparently oil’s a bargain at $80 a barrel
Abdullah bin Hamad Al-Attiyah lamented that ,adjusted for inflation, oil is cheaper than it was in 1972 and that because it’s priced in U.S. dollars, and the dollar has been slumping lately, the purchasing power of the oil that gets sold is suffering, even though demand for the stuff has never been higher.

Hong Kong joins party of records in Asia

Indexes in Sydney, Seoul and Jakarta extended gains on Thursday to set intraday records, while Hong Kong stocks rose sharply to join them, led by resources stocks such as China Shenhua Energy.

I am a Skype user, but I hardly use it for any voice calls, and to be frank, the list of friends on my Skype is less than the number of fingers I have (I have 10). Voice call on the Internet is something I can definitely live without. Maybe it’s just that I don’t have the habit of practicing LDR :-P

Well, if they start buying up and charging for every word I print with Wordpress (my blogging platform) or start charging me for my Gmail disk space, I’d start worrying.

EBay, the internet auction site, admitted yesterday that it had overpaid hugely for Skype, the internet telephone company.

EBay bought Skype in 2005 for $2.6 billion. Yesterday it warned shareholders that it would have to take an impairment charge of $900 million (£450 million) because it had valued the group too highly two years ago.

At the time of the deal, eBay said it would pay a maximum earn-out bonus of $1.7 billion based on various performance targets.

It said yesterday that it would pay only $530 million in cash to the Skype founders in the only and last payment of its kind.

Source: TimesOnline

A fine example on how Nintendo applied the blue ocean strategy. By focusing on their strengths and focusing on their uniqueness in the console-making industry, the console war (Sony’s Playstation and Microsoft’s XBox) suddenly becomes irrelevant to them.

And one can’t help but notice how “the other 2 giants” are more concerned on price cuts to gain market acceptance rather than coming up with differentiation and strategies to position themselves differently.

Nintendo became Japan’s second-biggest company by market capitalisation behind Toyota on Tuesday, underlining how the success of the Wii games console has transformed the fortunes of the Kyoto-based company.

Shares in Nintendo closed up 3.1 per cent to Y59,200 bringing its market value to Y8,390bn ($73.2bn), surpassing Canon’s market cap of Y8,120bn. But the gap between Nintendo and Toyota remains substantial. Toyota’s market capitalisation is Y24,000bn.

“Compared with two to three years ago, Nintendo is a completely different animal,� said Hiroshi Kamide, analyst at KBC securities.

“It has kept beating market expectations with its results and new products like the Wii Balance Board will keep the console fresh as it heads into the holiday season.�

Many analysts feel Nintendo is still not overvalued, in spite of its high share price. The company is known to be conservative in its profit forecasts, and foreign exchange rates in the US and Europe are expected to give its bottom line a boost.

Source: FT.Com

I believe Nintendo has got a way of communicating with the gamers, as they continue to offer new unique ways of experiencing the interactive content. For PS 2 there’s the Eye Toy and super-addictive interactive guitar controller (for rockstar wannabe like me).

But I won’t be joining the ranks of Nintendo Wii owners yet, since my PS2 is still very much under-utilized. The last “Nintendo console” I ever owned was the pocket sized flippable Donkey Kong gamewatch. Maybe it’s time to rekindle the love for an old flame :-D

The well-received Amanah Saham Malaysia is going to add another 500 million new units, making its total units to 5.28 billion. As with the previous launch, to ensure that more people can take advantage of the new units, each applicant is only eligible for 50,000 units.

Permodalan Nasional Bhd’s (PNB) unit trust arm Amanah Saham Nasional Bhd (ASNB) will launch 500 million new units in Amanah Saham Malaysia (ASM) on July 18 to tap the strong following for the unit trust scheme.

PNB president and chief executive officer Tan Sri Hamad Kama Piah Che Othman said the move to offer the additional units was partly in line with the overwhelming response to the scheme since it was launched seven years ago.

The Star Online