Seasons Greetings

Last blog entry for this year. It has been a bit slow for me as I wasn't really interested in writing anything or didn't have anything interesting to write about. Just to recap, the last quarter of 2007 has been a volatile one for the market world over.

As the US sub-prime crisis slowly reared its effects on the worlds financial institution, one would think a recession is just around the corner while nobody really dared to say anything concrete yet. Perhaps many are still holding on to some hope the dreaded 'R' word doesn't materialise, or maybe they just didn't want to be the bearer of ill-news for the New Year. There certainly has been a lot of bearish news of late, but as the quote goes "In a bull year, all news is good news, in a bear year all news is bad news."

With the Beijing Olympics starting on the 8th of August 2008 (8/8/08), many believe that Beijing will never allow it's market to crash before that and though their government has taken steps to cool down the economy, it still forecasts at least a 10% growth. With the HK-Warrant fever in KLSE cooling down somewhat due to the brick wall the Hang Seng Index has faced on the 30000+ mark, brokerage houses are still issuing foreign warrants like no tomorrow as some new US based Call Warrants are recently issued namely Apple and Google. It is still lightly traded as the warrants are too expensive in terms of premium, until another bull run pushes those stock beyond their previous highs.

Recent IPOs in KLSE has also been mixed as Aeon Credit the most recent one sizzled while less known Bio Osmo fizzled at its opening day. Maybe it's because Aeon is listed at the Main Board instead of Bio Osmo which was listed at the 2nd board. Seems anything getting listed in the 2nd board is not getting any attention these days unless syndicates plan to 'goreng' them up. Gone are the days of penny stocks flying through the roof, these are the days of HK warrants and their RM0.005 a share frenzy.

Talking about penny stocks, there still has been no word of whether the RM40 minimum brokerage fee would be changed when it is implemented in January 2008. It would definitely eat up the profits of small time traders and investors like myself when trading in small amounts. Hopefully it would prove so un-popular that it might get reversed or at least changed to a smaller amount.

Well onwards to the New Year then. Merry Christmas everyone and a very Happy New Year.