Morning Highlights

Singapore market kicked off the week on a positive note with the STI  up 12.76 points to open at 2955.78. Japanese stocks also bounded higher in early trading, with the Nikkei 225 Average hitting a fresh 18-month high as continuing weakness in the yen boosted exporters. Many other major Asian bourses were closed for holidays today, including Sydney, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Taipei and Shanghai.

  • Golden Agri broke high of 0.60 
  • Metro broke high of 0.83

Buoyed by strong U.S. jobs data, most of the Asian markets that are open for trading today are mostly up in positive territory for the morning session.

 News Updates:

  1. U.S. Non-Farm Payrolls Increased By 162,000 In March, following a revised decrease of 14,000 jobs in February.
  2. U.S. Unemployment Rate held steady at 9.7% in March, unchanged from the previous month.
  3. U.S. Pending Home Sales month-on-month will be out tonight. 
  4. Indonesian coal producer, PT Bumi Resources, reported on Monday its net profit fell 48.8% to US$190.45 million in 2009 compared to US$371.69 million a year earlier. 

Quick Picks: Here is a quick pick screen that we have designed to pick out potential stocks, both Bullish and Bearish. These are measured with emphasis on larger changes in price and volume.

Bullish Stocks (Singapore)

Symbol

Name

Entry

SL

TSL

TP

Remarks
1 GUOC Goucoland 2.48 2.35 2.61 Touched but not entered
2 UOBH United Overseas Bank 19.86 19.42 20.30  
3 KLAN Keppel Land Ltd 3.77 3.66 3.88
4 HKLD Hong Kong Land 5.17 4.92 5.42
5 SCMN Sembcorp Marine Ltd 4.32 4.17 4.47 Triggered, Current Price at 4.36
6 GPAK Goodpack Ltd 1.80 1.70 1.90
7 OSIL OSIM International Ltd 0.93 0.88 0.98
8 MAPL Mapletree Logistics Trust 0.885 0.835 0.935
9 CXLX China XLX-Fertiliser Ltd 0.655 0.60 0.71
10 ZOBE Z-Obee Holdings 0.565 0.515 0.615
11 TAHL Tiger Airways 1.86 1.77 1.95 Triggered, Current Price at 1.84
12 CSES CSE Global Ltd 1.06 0.985 1.15 Triggered, Current Price at 1.09
13 KPLM Keppel Corp Ltd 9.39 9.11 9.50 9.67 SOLD Half at 9.55, Current Price at 9.56

Stock Prices last updated at 17.05 (Singapore Time)

Afternoon Highlights

The bank stocks are not performing.. but index is stable. It is a good sign that index is able to hold above 2950. Likely to see index challenge 3000 point soon.

  • Yangzijiang broke high of 1.22

News Updates:

  1. U.S. weekly initial jobless claims drop by 6,000.
  2. Crude-oil futures up more than 1% to highest level since October 2008‏

In Summary

Index closed up 25.36 points at 2968.38, with 1.5564 billion traded.

Lookout for China Sector. Selective China Stocks include, China Aviation Oil, China XLX, China Hu An, Z-Obee and Hengxin.

Another Marine Stock to lookout for is Rickmer.

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