New 7th Storey Hotel makes way for new Bugis MRT station

New 7th Storey Hotel makes way for new Bugis MRT station

By Serene Loo/Ryan Huang,

SINGAPORE: One of Singapore’s oldest hotels has finally called it a day after 55 years. The New 7th Storey Hotel at Rochor Road is making way for the new Bugis MRT station.

The new Bugis station is one of the six that make up the 4.3-kilometre Downtown Line One, which is scheduled to open in 2013.

Authorities said demolition of the hotel is unavoidable due to engineering constraints.

The owners spent some S$100,000 renovating the budget hotel earlier this year.

Some people paid the hotel a final farewell visit on Friday.

Despite its name, the New 7th Storey Hotel actually has nine storeys comprising 38 rooms.

Many will remember its manually-operated lift and its spiral staircase.

However, there is some consolation as part of the hotel will still live on. Its charcoal steamboat restaurant will be moving to its new home at the Marina Barrage in December.

Parts of the hotel decor will be put up for sale. - CNA/vm

Source : Channel NewsAsia - 01 Nov 2008

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Crowds turn up at Bishan showflat despite economic slowdown

Crowds turn up at Bishan showflat despite economic slowdown

SINGAPORE: Despite the economic slowdown, some 1,000 people checked out the showflat in Bishan under the Housing and Development Board’s (HDB) Design, Build and Sell Scheme on Friday.

Called Natura Loft, it is the fourth project under the scheme.

A five-room unit costs up to S$739,000. It is priced at an average of S$525 per square foot, which makes it one of the most expensive units under the scheme so far.

The flooring features the use of bamboo wood, which is more environmentally-friendly than parquet.

The three blocks planned at Bishan Street 24 will comprise 480 units.

Eighty people had signed up by the end of Friday.

The director of SLP International, Jack Liew, who is also the marketing agent for Natura Loft, said: “HDB flats are still a basic need… for everyone. The demand will still be there.

“We still have a very good feeling that people will still buy, because it’s HDB. And thanks to the subsidies and grants given by the government, the response should still be very good.” - CNA/yt

Source : Channel NewsAsia - 01 Nov 2008

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Singapore SM Goh says govt to focus on impact of financial crisis on economy

Singapore SM Goh says govt to focus on impact of financial crisis on economy

By Pearl Forss,

SINGAPORE: Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong has stressed that Singapore’s financial system is stable, adding the government is now studying the impact of the financial crisis on the economy.

Mr Goh was speaking to reporters in Seoul, where he was on a three-day visit.

Singapore is in technical recession and its leaders are now looking at what can be done to help the country.

Mr Goh said: “Singapore’s growth will come down this year. Next year is likely to be slower than this year. But how slow, nobody knows at this stage.”

He added that the government is looking at the issue of individual investors who have lost their money in structured products linked to Lehman Brothers.

As Chairman of the Monetary Authority of Singapore, he said the MAS understands their anxiety and has set up a resolution process involving the financial institutions (FIs).

“If there are cases of misrepresentation in the sale of the product, just complain to the FIs. MAS’s job is to make sure the FIs give them a firm, fair, thorough hearing, and resolution must be fair to the investors,” Mr Goh added.

Before he left on Friday, he called on South Korean President Lee Myung Bak. - CNA/vm

Source : Channel NewsAsia - 01 Nov 2008

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Govt suspends sale of state land

Govt suspends sale of state land

Move welcomed in property circles as timely. By Arthur Sim

GOVERNMENT Land Sales (GLS) from the Confirmed List of state sites have been suspended for the first half of next year.

I am sure that if the market weakens there could be other measures. It could extend this for another two to three years.
Simon Cheong
The remaining sites on the Confirmed List will be transferred to the Reserve List. And a ban on converting office space in the central area to other uses, such as housing, will be lifted.

In a statement yesterday, the Ministry of National Development (MND) said Singapore’s fundamentals remain sound but the global downturn has affected the outlook for the island’s economy and property market.

Steps have been taken ‘to allow the market to better respond to the current dynamic economic conditions’, MND said. ‘The government will continue to monitor the demand and supply situation for the various property sectors closely and calibrate the GLS programme accordingly.’

The news was met with jubilation in property circles.

Simon Cheong, president of the Real Estate Developers Association of Singapore (Redas), said the move is ‘timely’ and shows the government is ’sensitive to the health of the market’.

‘I am sure that if the market weakens there could be other measures,’ he said. ‘It could extend this for another two to three years.’

The Confirmed List was last suspended between H2 2001 and H2 2005, according to the Urban Redevelopment Authority. A spokesman said: ‘The suspension of the Confirmed List is not indefinite. As the GLS Programme is reviewed every six months, the government will review the demand and supply situation in six months’ time and calibrate the programme according to the conditions then.’

Mr Cheong, who is also chairman and chief executive of SC Global, did not rule out the possibility of a return of deferred payments to support the property market. ‘You never know,’ he said. ‘If deferred payments were brought back, buyers will come back.’

The impact of the latest move may be limited, but it is important to ’stabilise’ sentiment, Mr Cheong said. ‘No one will go into the market if they think prices will go down.’

Frasers Centrepoint CEO Lim Ee Seng also thinks MND has fired only an opening salvo. ‘I am sure there will be more measures,’ he said.

Mr Lim also reckons MND’s action is not designed to ‘revive the market’. Instead, the suspension of the Confirmed List is expected to have a ‘psychological’ impact, as recent tenders resulted in bids below reserve prices.

Colliers International’s director for research and advisory Tay Huey Ying said that in the current weak market, sites on the Confirmed List would likely attract opportunistic bids or none at all. ‘Land is the country’s asset and the government has to make sure it is sold for a worthy sum,’ she said. The government has to regulate supply and demand and the GLS is a ‘tool’ to do this.

Concerns that there could be too many sites on the Confirmed List are not new. But until this year, the government’s position was that this was necessary to control rising business and living costs by making commercial and residential space affordable.

‘Initially, when the government continued with the Confirmed List, there was still some interest,’ Ms Tay said. But this has now mostly disappeared.

Recently, URA rejected the sole bid for a transitional office site in Mohamed Sultan Road because it was too low - at reportedly less than half of market expectations.

Of the seven sites on the Confirmed List, three have been launched for tender but the tenders have yet to close. Now, only the tender for an Executive Condominium (EC) site will proceed, as there are no new EC units available for sale.

The sites will still be available through the Reserve List. Under the Reserve List system, the government will only release a site for sale if an interested party submits an application and guarantees to pay a minimum price acceptable to the state.

Knight Frank’s director of research and consultancy Nicholas Mak has faith in the Reserve List system because ‘it is very market driven’. ‘You want a market equilibrium where there is no glut or supply squeeze,’ he said.

While he believes MND’s move will have little or no impact on supply, he noted that the government releases land based on assumed demand for property arising from economic growth.

The lifting of the ban on the conversion of offices in the central area to other uses could add more supply. But Cushman & Wakefield managing director Donald Han thinks this will simply give developers room to ‘breathe’. ‘It will allow them to adapt to certain market changes, like converting the offices to serviced apartments instead,’ he said. ‘We will not see hordes applying for a change of use.’

Savills Singapore’s director of marketing and business development Ku Swee Yong said: ‘The government recognises there is enough new supply and will now go back to the original intention of bringing life back to the city.’

It seems more help would be welcome. A spokesman for City Developments said: ‘We hope the government will continue to monitor the situation and introduce more pro-active measures to stabilise the property market.’

Source : Business Times - 01 Nov 2008

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Still not the season for bottom-fishing

Still not the season for bottom-fishing

Poor earnings visibility makes usual measures such as price-earnings ratios unreliable. By Conrad Tan

WITH share prices plummeting almost daily and legendary investors such as Warren Buffett urging Americans to buy US equities, is it finally time to get back into the stock market?

Not yet, but you can start looking at selected stocks, say analysts here. ‘I’m quite bearish on the market. Now is not the time to invest. If you’re bottom-fishing, you still have to wait,’ says Kevin Scully, who heads independent research firm NetResearch Asia.

‘Q1 next year is the time I’m looking to enter the market. You need to see the fourth-quarter results first, plus guidance for 2009, which will be given when companies release their 2008 results. I think the Q4 results will be very poor.’ On various measures favoured by bargain hunters, such as the stock price relative to a company’s past earnings or book value per share, some blue-chip stocks, especially the banks, certainly look cheap.

But analysts warn that such measures can be misleading. The historical price-earnings ratio, for instance, is useful only when past earnings are a reliable indicator of future earnings - hardly the case now with enormous volatility in financial markets and the bleak global economic outlook. Phillip Securities analyst Brandon Ng says some bank stocks are beginning to look like bargains, but warns that investors would need a strong stomach to dive in. ‘Usually we buy when there’s more earnings visibility - that’s my advice, hold your horses first.’

The forward price-earnings ratio, which measures how a stock price compares with the company’s expected earnings, is only as reliable as the underlying estimates of future profits - which are all but impossible to predict right now.

‘I think we haven’t really seen the worst of it yet,’ says Daiwa Institute of Research analyst David Lum. ‘We’ve only entered the recession this quarter and it really depends on how bad things can get. There’s no visibility next year, so I wouldn’t say it’s time to get in now, because there’s still a lot of uncertainty.’

Even the price-to-book ratio, which measures the market value of a company relative to the book value of its net assets, is not a foolproof tool for spotting a cheap stock. And just because a stock is trading for less than its book value doesn’t mean it can’t fall further. ‘On price-to-book valuations, Singapore banks are already trading below 2001 and 2003 levels,’ says Kenneth Ng, an analyst at CIMB.

But during the Asian financial crisis of 1997-98, ‘all three banks traded at about 0.5-0.6 times price-to-book’, he adds. ‘In normal times, one times price-to-book should be viewed as the floor level, but we have gone past that before, so I wouldn’t say never again. Singapore banks are very safe, but markets tend to overshoot on the downside.’

His advice: Some stocks may be worth buying ‘but probably not the banks’.

Some stocks in the offshore and marine and telecommunications sectors ’still look good’ as they are relatively shielded from demand destruction, he adds. NetResearch’s Mr Scully is looking at shares that offer ‘defensive earnings, strong balance sheets and a reasonable dividend yield’.

So far, his list of stocks to watch include telco SingTel, transport operators SMRT and ComfortDelGro, rig-builder Sembcorp Marine, conglomerate ST Engineering and palm oil producers Wilmar and Golden Agri-Resources, though he doesn’t recommend buying them yet. ‘For the economy to recover, I think the government will have to do fiscal pump-priming, so I’m looking at ST Engineering because of the defence contracts,’ he explains. ‘You can’t buy cyclicals like airlines or property yet - they are end-of-cycle recovery stocks.’

Banks and property companies are especially vulnerable to a broad economic slowdown, and analysts say the full impact of that has yet to be felt. ‘If we see unemployment in Singapore starting to head up to 2-3 per cent - it hit 5 per cent during the Asian financial crisis - you’re going to see more and more property defaults,’ says CIMB’s Mr Ng. Mr Scully warns that major developers could be hit badly by a surge in defaults on properties that were bought using the deferred-payment scheme at the height of the boom, if buyers can’t afford to cough up the rest of the money they owe. ‘This is going to be a problem for all the property developers.’

The bottom line? ‘At best, I think the bottom will be at the end of next year,’ he says.

Source : Business Times - 01 Nov 2008

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US banks owe billions in pay, pensions to executives: paper

US banks owe billions in pay, pensions to executives: paper

(Bangalore)

TROUBLED financial giants getting cash infusions from the US Federal Reserve owe their executives more than US$40 billion for past year’s pay and pensions as of the end of 2007, the Wall Street Journal said in an analysis.

The sums owed are mostly for special executive pensions and deferred compensation, including bonuses, for prior years, said the paper.

The newspaper also cited investment banks Goldman Sachs Group Inc , which owes its executives US$11.8 billion; JPMorgan Chase & Co , which has a payment of US$8.5 billion pending; and Morgan Stanley, which owes between US$10 billion and US$12 billion to executives.

Criticism of executive pay has gained momentum this election year with presidential candidates from both major parties lashing out over rich payouts for CEOs of companies that have suffered big losses in the US housing market bust and ensuing credit crisis.

As a result, the government has sought to rein in executive pay at banks getting federal money as part of the Bush administration’s US$700 billion bailout programme. Under pressure from members of Congress to curtail compensation, banks now also face a new threat from Andrew Cuomo, the New York attorney general, who sent a letter on Wednesday to nine big financial institutions receiving government aid.

Mr Cuomo gave the companies a week to provide a ‘detailed accounting regarding your expected payments to top management in the upcoming bonus season’.

His letter also warned that payments worth more than the services provided by executives might violate New York law.

‘Taxpayers are, in many ways, now like shareholders of your company,’ Mr Cuomo wrote to Bank of America, Bank of New York Mellon, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, State Street and Wells Fargo, ‘and your firm has a responsibility to them’.

But overlooked in these efforts is the total size of debts that financial firms receiving taxpayer assistance previously incurred to their executives, which at some firms exceed what they owe in pensions to their entire work forces, the Journal said. — Reuters, NYT

Source : Business Times - 01 Nov 2008

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Google may drop deal with Yahoo, say sources

Google may drop deal with Yahoo, say sources

The company does not want to accept any conditions on online ad sharing that antitrust officials may impose

(San Francisco)

TOUGH CHOICE

Antitrust officials may ask Google to limit the number of ads that it places on the Yahoo site and allow advertisers to opt out of ad sharing
GOOGLE may announce by the middle of next week it is dropping its proposed merger with Yahoo because it is reluctant to accept restrictions to avert a possible court challenge by US antitrust officials, people say.

A collapse of the planned venture between the two biggest online advertising companies would deprive Yahoo of as much as US$450 million in operating cash flow over a year. Microsoft Corp offered US$47.5 billion to buy Yahoo earlier this year.

Google is pondering pulling out of the agreement with Yahoo because it doesn’t want to accept conditions the government may require to avoid harm to competition in the market for online advertising based on Internet searches, sources said.

Google may have thwarted an acquisition of Yahoo by Microsoft simply by tying up the company in a lengthy Justice Department review, said Rebecca Arbogast, an analyst for Stifel Nicolaus in Washington.

‘This kept Yahoo out of the arms of Microsoft for a good long time,’ Ms Arbogast said. ‘That is a very good, practical outcome from their point of view. Given further shrinking and problems at Yahoo, it could be that they kept Yahoo out of Microsoft’s arms forever.’

But following a Thursday meeting with the Justice Department, the companies could decide to back away or announce a last-minute resolution - if one is reached - by next week, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Yahoo spokesman Tracy Schmaler said talks between the two companies are ongoing and they are working with regulators.

‘We believe strongly that this agreement will strengthen Yahoo’s competitive position in online advertising and will help to drive a more robust, higher quality Yahoo marketplace for our advertisers, publishers and users.’

Google spokesman Adam Kovacevich said they continue to have ‘cooperative discussions’ with the Justice Department. ‘We are confident that the arrangement is beneficial to competition, but we are not going to discuss the details of the process,’ he added.

Earlier this month, Yahoo and Google said they had agreed to a ‘brief’ delay in the start of the venture to give US antitrust enforcers more time to study it.

The people said Google must decide whether the joint venture still would make sense if, for instance, the company agreed to limit the number of ads that it places on the Yahoo site.

Another possible condition might be to give advertisers the ability to opt out of the ad-sharing if they don’t want to bid in an auction for the right to place ads on Google and Yahoo Internet search pages, the people said.

The Justice Department has been collecting sworn statements to prepare for filing a lawsuit seeking to block the venture if no agreement on conditions is reached, they said. Yahoo struck the deal with Google as a way to fend off Microsoft’s bid.

The deal, which allows Google to sell advertising for some of Yahoo’s online advertising space, has drawn criticism from advertisers, who fear higher prices.

Google and Yahoo together owned more than 80 per cent of the Web search market in August, according to comScore Inc.

Separately, Yahoo is in advanced discussions with Time Warner about buying the content and advertising operations of its AOL unit, sources told Reuters.

Yahoo and AOL are presently conducting due diligence to see what a combined company would look like, one source said. — Bloomberg, Reuters

Source : Business Times - 01 Nov 2008

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Indian cabinet approves bill to raise insurance investment limit

Indian cabinet approves bill to raise insurance investment limit

Foreign firms could own as much as 49% in local insurers, up from 26% now

(New Delhi)

MR CHIDAMBARAM
Amendments will remove archaic and redundant provisions in the legislations
INDIA’S cabinet has approved legislation that will allow companies such as American International Group Inc and New York Life Insurance Co to own as much as 49 per cent in local insurers, up from the current 26 per cent.

The government plans to introduce the bill in parliament to raise the overseas investment cap in private insurers, Finance Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram said in New Delhi yesterday.

Asia’s third-largest economy wants to ease some overseas ownership limits to attract investments as the global financial turmoil erodes confidence. Overseas investors have sold as much as US$12.7 billion of Indian equities this year, having bought a record US$17.2 billion last year.

Raising the limit may increase investment in India’s life insurance industry almost 2.5 times from 25 billion rupees (S$749 million) now, said TR Ramachandran, chief executive officer and managing director of the Indian unit of Aviva plc, the UK’s biggest insurer by premiums.

‘This proposed increase in foreign direct investment will add to the foreign inflow into the Indian economy, giving it a boost and will enable the insurance industry to grow and reach out to the length and breadth of the country,’ Mr Ramachandran said in an e-mailed release.

India’s foreign exchange reserves have dwindled by more than US$42 billion to US$273.9 billion as of Oct 17, from a record US$316.2 billion reached in May, central bank data show.

Any increase in holdings may boost sentiment and help generate funds that can be used for building infrastructure such as roads, utilities and water supply networks. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has said that the country may need to consider alternative funding avenues for the US$500 billion being sought for improving infrastructure.

The legislation is, however, unlikely to be approved by the current parliament because of the lack of time, Mr Chidambaram said. India has to hold elections for a new government and parliament by May.

Eighty per cent of the country’s 1.1 billion people have no insurance cover and 88 per cent of the workforce doesn’t contribute to pension schemes, according to Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.

New York-based AIG, the world’s largest insurer by assets, New York Life Insurance Co and Prudential plc, based in London, are among insurers that are restricted to 26 per cent stakes in their ventures in India.

In 2000, India opened up its insurance industry to overseas investment by dismantling the 44-year monopoly of state-owned Life Insurance Corp of India and its non-life counterparts.

‘These are comprehensive amendments,’ Mr Chidambaram said yesterday. The amendments will remove archaic and redundant provisions in the legislations, he said.

The government also plans to introduce a bill in parliament to increase the paid-up capital of Life Insurance Corp to one billion rupees from the current 50 million rupees, Mr Chidambaram said. — Bloomberg

Source : Business Times - 01 Nov 2008

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Singapore Unemployment rate holds steady amid signs of worsening crisis

Singapore Unemployment rate holds steady amid signs of worsening crisis

But jobs creation set to slow sharply in next few quarters as crunch hits key projects: analysts

By CHUANG PECK MING

SINGAPORE’S unemployment rate has stayed unchanged in September, even as employers are starting to feel the pinch of the credit crunch - and talks of job cuts are on the rise.

But it may be the calm before the storm.

The seasonally adjusted jobless rate held steady at 2.2 per cent, the same as in June, according to preliminary figures released yesterday by the Ministry of Manpower (MOM).

And this unchanged employment rate came after two straight quarters of increase - from 1.7 per cent in December 2007 to 2 per cent in March this year, and from 2 per cent in March to 2.2 per cent in June.

Yet while September’s employment rate is lower than expected - the market was looking for the rate to rise to 2.6 per cent - analysts largely have not changed their minds that things will worsen in the job market.

‘We continue to expect jobs creation to slow more significantly in the next few quarters, thus raising the unemployment rate more markedly going into Q4 ‘08,’ Citigroup says in note on the latest job data.

Citigroup does not see the situation improving any time soon.

‘Falling productivity and the delays of several critical investment projects cast a shadow on labour market prospects next year, and the possibility of net job losses cannot be ruled out, it says. Citigroup is maintaining its forecast that the jobless rate next year will increase to 3.6 per cent.

According to the MOM figures, layoffs have already crept up in the July-September quarter while job growth slowed - and the slowdown is reflected in all key sectors.

Overall employment rose by 57,800 in the third quarter, against a near-record 71,400 in Q2. A strong pipeline of projects kept the construction sector busy in Q3, churning out 16,400 jobs. Still, this was lower than the 22,400 jobs added in the previous quarter.

Weaker exports were already hurting the manufacturing sector, slowing the the number of jobs it created to less than half of that in Q2, to just 4,900.

Services job creation also eased, adding 36,200 jobs in Q3, down from 38,300 in the previous quarter.

‘Jobs creation will likely slow more sharply in Q4 and we cannot rule out the possibility of negative jobs creation in 2009,’ Citigroup says. ‘With jobs creation remaining positive despite falling GDP growth, labour productivity has continued to fall more sharply in Q3, raising the risk of increasing retrenchments in the coming quarters.’

Meanwhile, layoffs jumped from 1,798 workers in Q2 to 2,000 workers in Q3. Most of those axed were in manufacturing, which retrenched 1,500 workers, mainly from the electronics industry.

Services industries let go of 500 workers in Q3. ‘The brunt of job cuts will likely come from the manufacturing sector,’ Citigroup says. ‘Electronics, in particular, could lose more jobs as the cyclical downturn accelerates the structural relocation of key manufacturing operations.’

Citigroup points out that the credit crunch has resulted in a number of key investment projects - including a petrochemical plant on Jurong Island and the Marina Bay Sands Integrated Resorts - being delayed. This ‘removes an important support factor for the employment market’, it says.

Citigroup adds that construction jobs creation may be peaking, while services job creation is likely to be hit as hiring in the financial services is expected to stall - and there may even be job cuts in this sector.

Source : Business Times - 01 Nov 2008

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Black October

Black October

Listed companies get that shrinking feeling as market cap falls to 3-year low

By TEH SHI NING

IT has been more than three years since the companies listed on the Singapore Exchange felt so small - and they can blame October’s massive sell-offs for this. The month just gone by saw $123.5 billion slashed off Singapore’s stock market capitalisation as global jitters persisted and recession fears came true. The gloom will hover for some time as market observers say the worst is yet to come.

Market value has not plunged this low since end-May 2005’s market capitalisation of $387.5 billion.
As the Q3 earnings season peaks only in November and more fund redemption can be expected with two months to go till year-end, analysts say that unpredictability is still the name of the game. The combined value of the 781 companies on the SGX stood at a three-year low of $391.5 billion yesterday evening, 24 per cent lower than the $514.9 billion recorded end-September.

Thus far this year, Singapore’s stock market has shed over $200 billion, or 35 per cent of its capitalisation. Market value has not plunged this low since end-May 2005’s market cap of $387.5 billion. After a roller-coaster month, the Straits Times Index ended yesterday at 1794.20 points, 23.94 per cent down from the 2358.91 points recorded after September’s last trading session and a 48.23-per cent fall from the start of the year.

The number of billion-dollar stocks on Singapore’s bourse shrank to 60 in October from 74 in September, while the number of stocks with a market value below $200 million rose to 610 in October from September’s 584.

Just 102 listed counters, including those which had suspended trading, escaped having their market cap cut last month.

The three local banks’ share prices have slumped on news of earnings downgrades, and all three ended October with market values slipping under $20 billion.

DBS Group was the worst hit as shares plunged to a five-year low earlier this week. Its market cap has tumbled 34.3 per cent to $16.7 billion in the past month. Oversea Chinese Banking Corporation’s market cap fell 31.7 per cent to $15.3 billion while United Overseas Bank, which reported bleak Q3 earnings yesterday, saw its market value drop 22.5 per cent to $19.8 billion.

Property developers felt the heat too. Keppel Land, which recently reported a fall in Q3 profit, slid out of the top 50 rankings as its market cap fell 34.6 per cent to $1.3 billion. CapitaLand and City Developments, too, saw market value diminish by 6.9 per cent and 28.3 per cent to $8 billion and $5.7 billion respectively.

Volatile commodity prices meant the commodity stocks continued to suffer. Noble Group lost up to half its market value in the course of October. Its share price has since rebounded on forecasts of record profits, so it closed October 21.8 per cent down with a market cap of $3.4 billion.

Palm oil player Golden Agri-Resources fell 39.7 per cent to $1.9 billion and Olam fell 30 per cent to $2.2 billion. Wilmar International, the sixth largest stock on the exchange, slid a comparatively slight 1.6 per cent to finish with a market cap of $15.7 billion.

Shipping and offshore players Keppel Corp and SembCorp Marine also fell 42.9 per cent and 40.5 per cent, to $7.1 billion and $3.7 billion respectively. SIA fell 22.1 per cent to $13.1 billion.

Goh Mou Lih, head of research at Westcomb Securities, said: ‘I think the turbulence isn’t over yet; we’re headed towards more volatility.’

Stephanie Wong, head of research at Kim Eng said: ‘I’m hopeful for a gradual restoration of order in the financial markets. With interest rates trending south, corporates should breathe a little easier.’

According to a Citi equity strategy report released last week, ‘bear markets typically do not hit bottom until the economy is at or past the worst quarter of a recession’. Citi economists expect the sharpest contraction in Singapore’s economy in year-on-year terms to come only in the first quarter of next year.

In which case, the bear market has some way to go yet.

Source : Business Times - 01 Nov 2008

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