DAILY MORNING NOTE | 17 July 2025

Trade of The Day

Nebius Group N.V. (NASDAQ: NBIS)

Analyst: Zane Aw

(Current Price: US$53.53) – TECHNICAL BUY
Buy stop: US$55.43 Stop loss: US$48.80 (-11.96%)
Take profit 1: US$65.00 (+17.26%) Take profit 2: US$72.00 (+29.89%)

Trades Initiated in Past Week

Shares on the Singapore bourse closed higher on Wednesday (Jul 16), marking the third straight day the benchmark hit a new high. Singapore stocks rose 0.3 per cent or 12.43 points to close at 4,132.25, just shy of its intra-day peak of 4,132.41. Across the broader market, advancers outnumbered decliners 384 to 178, with 1.5 billion securities worth S$1.3 billion traded.

U.S. stocks went on a wild ride Wednesday as a White House official indicated that President Donald Trump was moving closer to firing Jerome Powell as Federal Reserve chairman, initially knocking down the S&P 500. The benchmark rebounded as Trump later denied the report, but traders remained concerned he could follow through. The S&P 500 added 0.32% and ended at at 6,263.70. The Nasdaq Composite gained 0.26%, settling at 20,730.49 and posting its ninth record close of the year. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 231.49 points, or 0.53%, ending at 44,254.78. At its low of the session, the 30-stock index dropped 264.31 points, or 0.6%.

Singapore Technical Highlights

* ^ denotes companies placed on SGX Watch-list

TOP 5 GAINERS & LOSERS

Events Of The Week

SG

Embattled entertainment group mm2 Asia has proposed to amend a S$54 million-bond deal that was set for redemption in December. In a non-binding memorandum of understanding with its bondholder, identified as Tan Boon Seng, the struggling group is seeking to extend the bond maturity by six years to Dec 31, 2031. The move would allow mm2 Asia to avoid imminent default, while paying higher interest at 6 per cent per annum, from the original 5 per cent a year. The proposed amendments would also give mm2 Asia control of the subsidiary mm Connect, which it had originally pledged as collateral. Under the amendments, the bondholder would be entitled to appoint one director to the board of mm Connect, and any proceeds arising from the sale of assets with mm Connect would be used to redeem the bonds.

Frasers Logistics & Commercial Trust will divest an office building in Melbourne’s Central Business District (CDB) for A$192.1 million (S$161.4 million), as it seeks to exit the Australian city’s office market and focus on logistics and industrial properties. After the divestment, FLCT’s portfolio weighting towards logistics and industrial assets is expected to increase to 74.2 per cent from 72.4 per cent, in line with FLCT’s strategic objective of achieving higher allocation to high-quality properties within that segment.

Shangri-La Asia announced the appointment of Kuok Hui Kwong as its new chief executive officer on Wednesday (Jul 16). The 47-year-old will start her new role on Aug 1. She has been the hospitality company’s executive director since June 2016 and its chairman since January 2017.

ComfortDelGro has launched training and capabilities development initiatives to upskill existing drivers, the company said on Wednesday (Jul 16). This will prepare the next generation of transport professionals for the future of mobility, as the industry evolves and embraces autonomous vehicles (AVs). Its first initiative in Singapore focuses on training safety operators for AVs developed by ComfortDelGro’s partner Moovita, which operates a fleet of autonomous shuttles in several locations across Singapore.

HRnetGroup has appointed 10 new business leader co-owners, following the retirement and departure of certain leaders, to bring its total number of co-owners to 45. This is part of the group’s strategy to deepen leadership succession and sustain business momentum, it said in a bourse filing on Wednesday (Jul 16). The group said its co-ownership model is a key competitive advantage in that it allows these leaders to make operational decisions and drive business outcomes autonomously.

GasHubUnited Utility, a subsidiary of H2G Green has signed two separate MOUs related to power generating projects in the Philippines that will have a capacity of at least 332 megawatts. The first MOU was with Primelectric Holdings and involves the conversion and upgrading of a diesel-fueled 24MW power barge to a natural gas-fueled power barge with an increased capacity of 32MW. The second MOU was with MabuhayPower Holdings Corporation, which is developing a LNG power plant of 300MW generation capacity. Under the proposed transaction, GasHub will provide technical and industry expertise and also an LNG floating storage unit and an onshore facility for regasification and cold energy recovery, which will then be used to run a cold storage facility and a data centre.

mm2 Asia has received a letter of demand (LOD) and a statutory demand (SD) from solicitors representing Frasers Centrepoint Trust for rent and other costs owed by its associates Cathay Cineplex to landlords, on July 15. The LOD and SD are in respect of outstanding rental and related payments for leased premises at Century Square and Causeway Point. mm2 Asia says that it is seeking legal advice regarding the abovementioned matters and intend to engage with Frasers to explore all available options. It will make further announcements as and when there are material developments.

The controlling Goh brothers of Ossia International do not intend to increase their offer price of 16 cents per offer share for the privatisation of the company, according to a release dated July 16. The Goh brothers, Goh Ching Wah, Goh Ching Huat and Goh Ching Lai, said in a joint statement that the offer price is final. The brothers, who have a 86.06% controlling stake in the company, sought to take the company private via a voluntary unconditional cash offer of 16 cents per share on May 15, a slight revision from an earlier 14.5 cents offer put forward in June 2024.

ST Engineering to book one-off gain of $80 million from selling broadband JV SPTel. Singapore Technologies Engineering and Singapore Power are selling their broadband joint venture SPTel to Seraya Partners for an enterprise value of $290 million. This proposed transaction will enable SPTel to grow under a new owner whose primary mandate is in investing and growing digital infrastructure platforms. SPTel was started by SP in 1997 and in May 2017, ST Engineering acquired a 51% stake. Seraya Partners is a private equity firm focusing on infrastructure investments, with an AUM of US$1.8 billion as indicated on its website.

US

United Airlines’ second-quarter earnings beat estimates, and its CEO said travel demand is picking up after a rocky start to 2025. Travel demand, particularly from more price-sensitive customers for domestic flights, had come in weaker than airline executives expected at the start of the year, sending airfares lower. The company said it now expects to earn between $9 and $11 a share this year, down from a forecast earlier this year of between $11.50 and $13.50 a share and it expects constraints at its Newark Liberty International Airport hub to continue to hit its pretax margins.

OpenAI said Wednesday that it expects to use Google’s cloud infrastructure for its popular ChatGPT artificial intelligence assistant. The reach for additional capacity aligns with OpenAI’s desire for more computing power to meet heavy demand after initially relying exclusively on Microsoft for cloud capacity. The announcement amounts to a win for Google, whose cloud unit is younger and smaller than Amazon’s and Microsoft’s. Google also has cloud business with Anthropic, which was established by former OpenAI executives.

Shares of the online firearms retailer GrabAGun whose shareholders and board members include Donald Trump Jr. tanked on their first day of trading on the New York Stock Exchange following a merger with a special purpose acquisition company. GrabAGun’s stock price fell by more than 20% in trading in the hours after Trump Jr. rang the opening bell from the trading floor.

Nvidia is looking to ship more advanced chips to China than its current generation, CEO Jensen Huang said on Wednesday, as he looks to revitalize sales in the world’s second-largest economy. The comments come after Nvidia said on Monday that it will resume sales of its H20 artificial intelligence chip to China, reversing a previous ban. The H20 is a less-advanced semiconductor designed for AI workloads that comply with U.S. export restrictions to China. Nvidia took a $4.5 billion writedown on the unsold H20 inventory in May and said sales in its last financial quarter would have been $2.5 billion higher without any export curbs.

Goldman Sachs on Wednesday posted results that topped expectations as its trading operations generated $840 million more in revenue than analysts had expected. The bank said that second-quarter profit jumped 22% from a year earlier to $3.72 billion, or $10.91 per share. Revenue climbed 15% to $14.58 billion, roughly $1.1 billion more than the estimate.

Bank of America puts up mixed results as net interest income misses analysts’ expectations. Bank of America profit climbed about 3% from a year earlier to $7.12 billion, or 89 cents per share. Revenue climbed about 4% to $26.61 billion, below analysts’ expectations. CEO Brian Moynihan pointed to the larger trends at his bank, saying that it was the fourth consecutive quarter that NII rose amid rising deposits and loan growth.

Morgan Stanley on Wednesday reported second-quarter results that crushed Wall Street expectations on the back of higher trading revenues. Net income rose 15% to $3.54 billion, or $2.13 per share, from $3.08 billion, or $1.82 per share, for the same period a year ago. Revenue increased 12% from $15 billion.

Late to embrace online retail, Estée Lauder is launching a digital push under its new chief executive officer to reverse a yearslong sales slump. When Stéphane de La Faverie took the helm in January, he announced a revamp that involved meeting customers where they are, which is increasingly, online. The company’s share price has plunged in the past few years, hurt in part by a pullback in spending by Chinese consumers. The beauty giant, concerned about its brands’ high-end cachet, was also slow to sell products at retailers like Sephora and Amazon.com.

The world’s largest owner of industrial real estate says companies are leasing more custom-built warehouse space despite broader economic uncertainty. San Francisco-based Prologis on Wednesday said it logged more than $900 million in new development starts in the quarter ended June 30, up from $324 million in the same period a year earlier. About 65% of the new projects were leased to tenants before construction started. Prologis increased its projected new development starts for the year to a range of $2.25 billion to $2.75 billion, from a previous estimate of $1.5 billion to $2 billion, driven by growing demand for build-to-suit space, which is leased in advance by a tenant.

Source: SGX Masnet, Bloomberg, Channel NewsAsia, Reuters, CNBC, WSJ, The Business Times, The Edge Singapore, PSR

RESEARCH REPORTS

JPMorgan Chase & Co – NII guidance raised

Recommendation: NEUTRAL; TP US$291.00; Last close: US$; Analyst Glenn Thum

• 2Q25 earnings fell 17% YoY to US$15bn, slightly below our estimates, with 1H25 earnings at 48% of our FY25e forecast. JPM recorded higher trading, asset management, and IB income. NII inched up slightly, while earnings fell 17% YoY from a US$7.9bn gain on Visa shares in 2Q24. DPS rose 22% YoY to US$1.40. Excluding one-off items (US$774mn income tax benefit in 2Q25 and gain on Visa shares in 2Q24), adjusted 2Q25 earnings would have risen by 12% YoY. The dividend payout ratio increased to 27% (2Q24: 19%), with net common stock repurchases in 2Q25 at US$7.1bn (2Q24: US$4.9 bn).
• NII increased 2% YoY from higher Markets NII, while loans grew 5% YoY. Excluding the one-off gain in 2Q24, non-interest income (+11% YoY) was the primary growth driver, driven by continued improvements in principal transactions, investment banking, and asset management fees. JPM raised its FY25e guidance for NII of US$95.5bn (prev. US$94.5bn) and expenses of US$95.5bn (prev. US$95bn).
• Downgrade to NEUTRAL with a higher target price of US$291 (prev. US$252). We raise FY25e earnings by ~6% as we increase NII, trading, and IB estimates, while lowering provisions estimates. Our GGM valuation assumes 2.24x FY25e P/BV and an ROE estimate of 21.6%. We like JPM for its ability to continue growing revenue in all its segments, particularly in Consumer & Community Banking and Corporate & Investment Banking. Despite JPM raising its FY25e guidance, we are cautious due to headwinds from a) macro uncertainties such as trade tensions and policy shifts, which would increase provisions and NPLs, and b) interest rate cuts, which could hurt NII and lower margin expectations. Valuations are also rather full, with JPM’s P/E ratio at ~14x (vs 10-year average of ~11.6x) and P/B ratio at ~2.4x (vs 10-year average of 1.5x).

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