DAILY MORNING NOTE | 6 June 2023

Access Thai stocks with Singapore Depository Receipts

CP All Public Co. Ltd. the largest convenience store chain operations under the 7-Eleven trademark in Thailand, operating over 11,000 7-Eleven stores throughout the country. The company operates through the following segments: Convenience Stores, Cash and Carry and Others. If you wish to invest in CP All, you can consider investing through the CP All Singapore Depository Receipts (stock code: TCPD), listed on SGX. It offers investors an attractive combination of stability, liquidity, and convenience.

Singapore shares rode on the Wall Street rally last Friday to start the week on an upbeat note. The momentum, however, was tempered after the first trading hour, with some of the gains being clawed back. Gainers trumped decliners 294 to 233 in the broader market, with 1.83 billion securities worth a total of S$1.45 billion transacted.

Wall Street stocks dipped on Monday, pulling back a bit from multi-month highs reached last week after the United States avoided a catastrophic debt default. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 0.6 per cent to 33,562.86. The broad-based S&P 500 shed 0.2 per cent to 4,273.79, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index declined 0.1 per cent to 13,229.43.

SG

Sembcorp Industries on Monday (Jun 5) announced that its unit Sembcorp Gas has signed a gas sales agreement to import natural gas piped from the West Natuna gas fields in Indonesia at an estimated value of S$1.9 billion. In a bourse filing, Sembcorp said the agreement supplements its existing natural gas supply from piped and liquefied sources, and will allow the company to maintain its position as Singapore’s leading natural gas importer. The company, meanwhile, said the signing of the sales agreement is in its ordinary course of business, and is not expected to place any material impact on its earnings per share and net tangible assets per share for the financial year ending Dec 31, 2023. Sembcorp shares closed up 3.1 per cent at S$5.35 on Monday, before the announcement.

Lendlease Global Commercial Reit (LReit) has taken over a 10 per cent share of Parkway Parade Partnership (PPP) for S$90.5 million. The amount was based on a S$1.38 billion agreed market value of the 291 strata lots PPP owns in Parkway Parade, an integrated office and retail development in Marine Parade. PPP holds an indirect 100 per cent interest in the 291 strata lots, which represent 77.09 per cent of the lots’ total share value. LReit’s manager said the acquisition benefits unit holders because it grants LReit flexibility to raise its stake in the properties over time through pre-emptive rights, and leads to distribution per unit (DPU) accretion on a pro forma basis.

Centurion Corporation, which owns, develops and manages purpose-built worker and student accommodation, has applied to voluntarily withdraw its shares listing on the Hong Kong stock exchange (HKEX) “for reasons of cost and utility”. In a bourse filing on Monday (Jun 5), the company, which is listed on the Singapore Exchange’s mainboard, said the volume of trading since its 2017 share offer on the HKEX has been “very limited”. The company also has not had the appropriate opportunity to take advantage of HKEX platform for secondary equity fund-raising activities in Hong Kong and would rather enable the company to effect cost savings.

Goldheart, the jewellery chain under Catalist-listed Aspial Lifestyle, on Monday (Jun 5) announced a data breach affecting close to 42,000 of its e-commerce customers. While financial data such as credit card information or passwords have not been accessed or retrieved by hackers, leaked information include customers’ names, addresses, emails, birth dates and phone numbers. The company has also moved to notify all affected customers of the incident, on top of notifying the Personal Data Protection Commissioner and reporting the incident to the police. Shares of Aspial Lifestyle closed 0.7 per cent or S$0.001 lower at S$0.141 on Monday, before the announcement.

US

Apple is expected to unveil a mixed-reality headset at its annual software developer conference on Monday (Jun 5), its first big move into a new product category since the introduction of the Apple Watch nine years ago. The launch will see Apple test a market crowded with devices that have yet to gain traction with consumers and put it in direct competition with Facebook-owner Meta Platforms.

US automaker Tesla delivered 77,695 China-made electric vehicles (EVs) in May, data from the China Passenger Car Association (CPCA) showed on Monday (Jun 5). That represented a 2.4 per cent jump from April when Tesla sold 75,842 locally made Models 3 and Y in the world’s largest auto market. On a yearly basis, sales rose 142 per cent in May from 32,165 vehicles in the same month of 2022 when Shanghai, where its factory is located, was still subject to Covid-19 containment measures, disrupting production. Chinese rival BYD, with its Dynasty and Ocean series of EVs and petrol-electric hybrid vehicles, logged sales of 239,092 vehicle in May, up 14 per cent from a year earlier, CPCA data showed.

The US dollar edged up against major currencies on Monday (Jun 5), as markets priced in around a 30 per cent chance of the US Federal Reserve (Fed) raising benchmark rates this month after robust jobs data on Friday. The US dollar index – which tracks the greenback against six peers – came off the boil last week, after some Fed officials had voiced a preference for a pause in rate hikes and after a breakthrough in US debt ceiling talks calmed market jitters. Markets are now putting the probability of a 25 basis point hike at the meeting on Jun 13-14 at 29.1 per cent.

General Motors (GM) said on Monday (Jun 5) it plans to invest more than US$1 billion to re-tool two manufacturing sites in Flint, Michigan to prepare for a new generation of its internal combustion engine heavy-duty (HD) trucks. GM has outlined this year a total of US$1.7 billion in investments in Flint facilities to support the next generation of its heavy duty pickups. GM said it will spend US$579 million at its Flint Engine Operations to produce a sixth generation of its small block V-8 combustion engine. Another US$103.5 million will be spent upgrading a separate Flint facility that supports truck production. Last year, GM sold nearly 288,000 trucks with HD pickup sales, which rose 38 per cent from a year earlier.

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

RESEARCH REPORTS

PSR Stocks Coverage

For more information, please visit:

https://www.stocksbnb.com/singapore-stocks-coverage/