MARKET ROUNDUP (Source Bloomberg)

U.S. Stocks Fall As Investors Await Fed Stimulus Signals: following the first weekly decline in about two months for the Standard & Poor's 500 Index. The S&P 500 slid 0.1 percent to 1,410.44 at 4 p.m. New York time. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 33.30 points, or 0.3 percent, to 13,124.67. The Nasdaq-100 Index gained 0.2 percent to 2,782.55, after rising to the highest since 2000 during the day. Volume for exchangelisted stocks in the U.S. was 4.5 billion shares, the lowest level since at least 2008 excluding days surrounding holidays, data compiled by Bloomberg show.


European Stocks Climb Amid Debt-Crisis Talks: as Germany's Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said the continent's two largest economies will create a working group to strengthen the euro area's fiscal and monetary union. France's
CAC 40 rose 0.9 percent and Germany's DAX Index climbed 1.1 percent after a report showed business confidence fell less than some economists forecast. U.K. market was closed for a public holiday.

Oil Trades Near Two-Week Low On Forecasts Isaac Impact Limited: on speculation Tropical Storm Isaac's impact on production in the Gulf of Mexico will be limited. Oil for October delivery was at $95.60 a barrel, up 13 cents, in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange at 9:25 a.m. Sydney time. The contract yesterday fell 68 cents, or 0.7 percent, to $95.47, the lowest close since Aug. 15. Prices are down 3.3 percent this year.

CORPORATE NEWS

Oldtown explains flat Q2 earnings: the lacklustre result was due to a comparison of a one-off gain of RM5.1 million from the disposal of investment in associate companies a year ago. If not for that extraordinary gain in the second quarter earnings ended June 2011, Oldtown explained, profit for the second quarter ended June 2012 would have seen a 58 per cent jump.

DRB-HICOM Q1 revenue soars 119pc to RM3.46b: However, the group's pre-tax profit dropped to RM97.9 million from RM146.3 million a year ago. This is due to the higher finance cost following the acquisition of Proton as well as the losses
incurred by Proton's wholly-owned subsidiary, Lotus.

Btimes


IOI Q4 earnings dip on lower profit from plantation segment: the 26.68% decline in the fourth quarter earnings from RM547.82mil a year ago was attributed to lower profit from the plantation and resource-based manufacturing segments.

United Plantations Q2 net profit down: The decrease in the group's profit was largely due to lower production of crude palm oil (CPO) and palm kernels (PK), higher production costs and lower selling prices of these two product.

StarbIz


Source:Jupiter Securities Research 28 August 2012