Can you believe them?

Day in and day out, when the stock market is in an upward direction, we have predictors, forecasters and oraclers telling us their supposedly hindsight 20-20 vision of what target prices a stock should be.

They could be fundamentalists or they could be those chaps operating from waves,candles and charts.

All the same, the have their share of predictions. Could they be believed?

Let us look at some of the stocks they are looking at today and what are their forecasted price in days to come. We must tell ourselves that they are all giving us their forecasts with the grand assumption that the global economic trends remain intact.

Let us look at three investment banks and their forecasts. The banks are Hwang-DBS Vickers,RHB Research and Am Research.

Let us look how they perceived one of South-east Asia's bluest of the blue shares-Sime Darby.

This stock is trading 25 sen up today at RM9.96.

Hwang opines that it will likely go up to RM11.25; RHB Research, being less optimistic, gives it a RM10.55 while Am Research gives it a 5 sen better at RM10.60. If a majority count is made, then Sime should move up to RM10-55-RM10.60. This will be a fair price projection.

Two investment houses recommend Sunway Holdings.

This stock is currently trading at RM2.62. Hwang believes that it can move up to RM3.30 while RHB cautiously reckon it can reach RM3.15.

One other stock is Digi. One investment house(I cannot recall-it could have been CIMB) said it will move up to RM4.40, It is currently settling down at RM4.06. A push of 34 sen and it will have arrived.

Meanwhile, do not expect all these shares to go up like an arrow.

There will be fits and starts, digestion issues, warts and all.

So, be patient!

Shifting Fortunes

Enrich thy neighbour,beggar thy neighbour.

As they say,English is contextual. It depends on the words and the situation that it is applied; to get at its real meaning.

So, in this case, it is clear that the meaning does not exist in a vacuum and not amongst neighbours proferring the same wares.

Reduction of taxes on edible oil by Indonesia is going to upset Malaysia for sure.

Unless Malaysia does the same thing to bring down taxes to an equivalent level, expect lower export yield as even Malaysian refineries may move to neighbouring Indonesia to tap on higher margins.

Will Malaysia put at risk a US20 billion industry?

Remember that foreign investors and smaller palm oil refiners process 60 per cent of the country’s output.US agribusiness Cargill and Japan’s Nisshin Olio operate refineries in Malaysia where the margins have come under severe pressure in recent months.

Malaysia definitely cannot afford to lose the investment already made by non-integrated refineries.The consequence could be catastrophic especially for the smallholders and private millers which are depending on them now to off-load their fresh fruit bunches and crude palm oil.

Currently, Indonesia is offering discounts on processed palm oil to markets in India and Pakistan as they enjoy a price advantage of US$100 per tonne because of lower export taxes.

Malaysia is undoubtedly worried about the 25 new refineries with a combined capacity of 9.6 million tonnes.coming on steam.

Independent Singaporean refiner Mewah, which owns some of the biggest factories in Malaysia, has already said it would delay ongoing plans for a new processor in Malaysia’s Sabah state to focus on building one in Indonesia.

Other existing players may follow Mewah so long as the government keeps an annual tax-free crude palm oil (CPO) export quota of 3 million tonnes, which tightens supply, raises feedstock costs and reduces factory use rates.

Malaysia taxes crude palm oil exports to protect its refining sector where capacity stands at nearly 24 million tonnes but imposes the quota to help firms like Sime Darby and IOI Corp feed their overseas refineries.

The duty free export quota will reduce the average refining capacity utilisation this year to about 68 per cent.

The impact will be more pronounced with the quota estimated to mop up about 15 per cent of Malaysia’s projected crude palm oil output this year of over 19 million tonnes.

Apparently,for some refineries with a refining capacity utilisation rate of less than 60 per cent, it would be difficult to sustain their operations.

The bigger blow for these standalone refiners will come from Indonesia where greater refining capacity use and lower export taxes will see less crude palm oil shipped to Malaysia.

In 2011,Malaysia imported a record 1.3 million tonnes of crude palm oil from Indonesia to keep its refineries running but this year, it could be an entirely different story. as limited imports could be costly and further depress margins.

On a sweeter note, big Malaysian palm oil firms with a huge plantation bank and refineries like Sime, IOI, KL Kepong and United Plantations will still survive,

This, however does not preclude them from investing in Indonesia because they have plantations there. Some have already joint-ventures in Indonesia in the downstream industry.

So, tax people at the Ministry of Finance, what next?

Tanya Roberts-Such an Adorable Angel!

A common name such as Julie Rogers may not sound very appropriate for the last Angel for the 'Charlie's Angels' series but there you have it.

None other than Bond girl and Sheena of the Jungle took on this role as the final Angel to grace the small screen before the series faded into oblivion. She is none other than that flaming beauty called Tanya Roberts.

A cross between a dazzling Farrah and the delightfully charming Jaclyn Smith, Tanya Roberts held herself well.

Watch her is these serialised montages.

Wow! What a Hack!

Shelley Hack is another Angel that many has forgotten.

She came into the series as Tiffany Welles after Kate Jackson left 'Charlie's Angels'.

Obviously, the most well remembered faces were that of the original trio-Farrah Fawcett as Jill Monroe,Kate Jackson as Sabrina Duncan and Jaclyn Smith as Kelly Garrett.

Then Cheryl Ladd joined the cast as Kris Munroe.

Here, watch, Shelley Hack is a video presentation as Tiffany Welles.

Enjoy!

2 Nights at Berjaya Times Square Hotel

We were privileged to get a complimentary 2N3D stay at the beautiful Berjaya Times Square Hotel (BTSH).

Located right smack in town along Imbi Road with easy access to the famed Bukit Bintang Walk, BTSH was well positioned and we could easily get to Hutong at Lot 10 to savour all those generation-old hawker culinary delights.

For those who are more technologically attuned, they can go to the exciting Low Yat Plaza to shop for computers, GPS and other gadgets.

As midnight drew near, the lights adorning the Petronas Twin Towers switched off for the night as club crawlers started making their way home. Traffic trickled to single digits along the main thoroughfares after three in the morning.

Breakfast at the Big Apple was also delightfully pleasant to whet our appetite. The spread was quite good and is a fusion between the East and the West.

As for the room, we had a superior studio with two bedrooms and an adjoining kitchenite.

We had quite a good stay at the hotel.

YTL-Something's Brewing

After a long hibernation not unlike the seasonal preoccupation of the polar bear,YTL Corporation has stirred into some volume action.

I was away for the last two days and have not been keeping up with the Bursa action when I was told that YTL has cross into the RM1.50 price territory.

When an acquaintance told me about it, I was nonplussed as my average price was RM1.55 and that development was not really comforting.

This morning, it spurted passed the RM1.60 price on huge volume with some deals done in 100,000 tranches.

What is brewing in YTL as it is neither GAB or Carlsberg? And certainly not from heavy smoking in BAT?

What is Francis up to this time?

After taking YTL Cement off the board and compelling every shareholder possible to convert to YTL shares, he will be using his legal avenues to wrestle away those stubborn YTL Cement shareholders who refuse to part with their YTL Cement shares.

YTL Corp Bhd is a good share.

For its second quarter of its current fiscal year ended Dec 31, 2011, it posted a 44.6% year-on-year jump in net profit to RM237.4mil as compared with RM164.2mil a year earlier. YTL Corp and its listed arms' financial year ends on June 30, 2012.

For the quarter under review, the well-diversified group's revenue increased 18.4% year-on-year to RM5.3bil.

Francis informed the Group continued to perform well due mainly to the “ongoing resilience of our multi-utility businesses in Malaysia, Britain and Singapore”.

“Our cement and multi-utility operations, which are the group's major contributors, continue to register sound performance,” he added.

For the six months ended Dec 31, 2011, YTL Corp recorded a 10.4% year-on-year jump in net profit to RM489.2mil while revenue increased 10.8% to RM9.87bil.

Meanwhile, for the first half of FY12, YTL Power International Bhd's net profit grew 5.2% year-on-year to RM560mil while revenue rose 9.4% to RM7.7bil, due mainly to better performance of its merchant multi-utility businesses.

However, the division's YES mobile broadband operations registered a loss due mainly to the upfront implementation costs to build the 4G network for scale in order to cover the peninsula.

YTL Cement Bhd saw its net profit for the first half of FY12 grow by 8.8% year-on-year to RM167.9mil while revenue increased 12.2% to RM1.15bil due mainly to higher demand for cement in the construction industry and contributions from offshore subsidiaries.

On YTL Power, analysts said the company's results for the first half of FY12 were within expectations.

According to CIMB Research,YTL Power has a cash horde aimed for suitable mergers and acquisitions it can find.

“We believe YTL Power would eventually win the national 1Bestarinet smart school project. The project is worth RM300mil per annum over 10 years,” said CIMB Research. This is most interesting, don't you think? A certain little bird is up to no good?

Meanwhile, HwangDBS Vickers Research pointed out that YTL Power's dividend per share was lower quarter-on-quarter.

The research house said this was possibly because the company wanted to retain cash to fund increasing capital expenditure for YES, and potential investments in new power plants in Malaysia and overseas regulated assets.

YTL Power had declared a 1.875% or 0.9375 sen per share second interim dividend for FY12.

So, what do you think is brewing at YTL.

There will be no need for another share split. After the share exchange with YTL Cement shareholders, there is definitely a certain glut of YTL shares in the market.

Even the buying for Treasury shares is fast approaching the 10% legal limit.

So what can one expect from this sudden flurry of buying apart from possible Treasury buys?

Share redistribution in specie to loyal shareholders? Very likely.

At the close, YTL Corp became the most traded counter rising a spectacular 17 sen to RM1.75 on a volume of almost 12 million shares.

I think besides the Treasury buy-ins, other parties both speculators and institutions from at home and abroad could have jumped onto the counter on some expectations of positive corporate development.

Who knows?

The Wholesome Angel

If there is anyone of 'Charlie's Angels' that can be considered really wholesome, then it must be Cheryl Ladd. This star has the appeal of whatever is meant by the word, 'nice and beautiful'.

If I want to hazard a description of the other Angels, then Farrah would be the most sexy followed by Tanya Roberts and Shelley Hack. Jaclyn Smith was good to look at while Kate is just the girl next door.

I was looking through the WWW and only these Cheryl photos fit my description of 'nice'.