$SINGAPORE AIRLINES LTD(C6L.SI)$ Singapore Airlines (SIA) reported a robust set of numbers for its June operating results, thanks to the high demand for air travel amid the mid-year holidays, coupled with the start of the summer travel season. This was across every route region except East Asia, where travel restrictions continue to be in place for certain points.The group carried a total of about 1.9 million passengers during the month, up 13.7% from the previous month. Group passenger capacity (measured in available seat-kilometres) was up by 3 percentage points (ppt) than the month before and 36% higher compared to a year ago, thereby reaching 64% of pre-Covid-19 pandemic levels.The group passenger load factor (PLF) reached a new pandemic-hig

$Netflix(NFLX)$ Netflix rekindles analyst interest after 60% wipeoutAnalysts increasingly are betting that Netflix Inc.’s move into advertising can help turn around the performance of one of the weakest stocks of 2022.At least three firms on Wall Street have upgraded the streaming-video company’s shares this month, citing its planned introduction this year of an ad-supported subscriber tier.Netflix shares have plunged 60% in 2022, making it the fourth-worst performer in the Nasdaq 100 Index. The bulk of the losses followed a pair of catastrophic earnings reports, including the first quarter since 2011 in which its user base shrank. The stock fell 0.4% on Tuesday.The results raised questions about its ability to hold onto pandemic-era gains, an iss

$KEPPEL DC REIT(AJBU.SI)$$MAPLETREE INDUSTRIAL TRUST(ME8U.SI)$ Industrial REITs have been a bastion of stability throughout the pandemic.Of course, the important attribute that many of them have is strong tenants within their portfolio.This fact has enabled many industrial REITs to pay out a dependable and consistent flow of dividends through good times and bad.Within the industrial REIT space, it may be tough to choose between two REITs that seem to be equally good. Keppel DC and $MAPLETREE INDUSTRIAL TRUST(ME8U.SI)$ Both REITs have strong sponsors and diversified portfolios with long track records.$KEPPEL DC REIT(AJBU.SI)$ owns 21 data centres across nine countries with assets under mana

$SATS LTD.(S58.SI)$David Iben put it well when he said, 'Volatility is not a risk we care about. What we care about is avoiding the permanent loss of capital.' So it might be obvious that you need to consider debt, when you think about how risky any given stock is, because too much debt can sink a company. Importantly, $SATS LTD.(S58.SI)$ does carry debt. But is this debt a concern to shareholders? [smile] [smile] [smile] What Risk Does Debt Bring?Debt assists a business until the business has trouble paying it off, either with new capital or with free cash flow. In the worst case scenario, a company can go bankrupt if it cannot pay its creditors. However, a more frequent (but

$COMFORTDELGRO CORPORATION LTD(C52.SI)$ RHB Group Research analyst Shekhar Jaiswal is keeping his “buy” recommendation on CDG as he sees the transport operator being “well-placed” to maintain its earnings recovery over the next few quarters.The earnings recovery comes as CDG’s Singapore units gradually return to normalcy following the negative impact that stemmed from the Covid-19 pandemic.In addition, the one-off government support of $150 for taxi hirers to offset higher fuel prices, coupled with the support measures from CDG itself, should enable the group to sustain a gradual recovery in taxi earnings, as it should strengthen the sustainability of taxi hirers’ earnings, the analyst says.The $150 relief will go to eligible taxi main hirers an

$SINGAPORE POST LIMITED(S08.SI)$ In its latest 1QFY2022 ended June operational update, SINGAPORE POST announced that its domestic post and parcel segment continued to trade in challenging conditions. Traditional letter mail volumes declined further, while costs rose significantly, particularly in fuel, labour and utilities. Additionally, a major eCommerce customer has insourced part of its own logistics, resulting in lower volumes.The international post & parcel business continued to face significant headwinds from further supply chain disruptions, and there was also a knock-on impact from the ongoing lockdowns in cities in China due to the Covid-19 situation. These have adversely impacted conveyance costs for our supply chains originating f

$DBS GROUP HOLDINGS LTD(D05.SI)$$UNITED OVERSEAS BANK LIMITED(U11.SI)$ The local banks announced their 1QFY2022 business updates. Rising interest rates took centrestage - in terms of their impact on net interest income, on their customers and credit costs, and on banks’ own portfolios which comprise high quality liquid assets (HQLA).In a nutshell, DBS Group Holdings’ 1QFY2022 net profit of $1.8 billion, up 30% q-o-q but down 10% y-o-y, just a tad outside the consensus forecast of $1.88 billion on Bloomberg; Oversea Chinese Banking Corp’s (OCBC) net profit - up 39% q-o-q but down 10% y-o-y - of $1.36 billion was comfortably above the $1.2 billion consensus forecast on Bloomberg. Uni

$KEPPEL CORPORATION LIMITED(BN4.SI)$ Keppel Corp has won a US$2.9 billion ($4.97 billion) contract from Petrobras to build a floating production, storage and offloading vessel (FPSO).Petrobras, Brazil's state-owned oil company, is a longtime customer of Keppel Corp,The FPSO, named P-80, is scheduled for completion in the first half of 2026. It is the second FPSO that Keppel will be building for Petrobras for the Buzios field in Brazil. An earlier contract to build another FPSO, the P-78, is being executed.P-80 is structured on progressive milestone payments and will be cash-flow neutral during its execution lifecycle.When completed, the P-80 will be one of the largest floating production units in the world with a production capacity of 225,000 b

$SINGAPORE AIRLINES LTD(C6L.SI)$ CGS-CIMB Research analyst Raymond Yap has kept a “hold” rating on Singapore Airlines (SIA) as he sees the airline’s high airfares, elevated market share and strong demand to be offset by the risks of high oil prices.In addition, Yap has lowered his target price of $5.75 from $5.92 previously, after cutting his earnings per share (EPS) estimates for the FY2023 to FY2024 ending March and applying a lower FY2023 P/BV of 0.95x, which is SIA’s mean since 2011.The lowered EPS estimates were due to the analyst’s higher price assumptions for spot jet fuel, from US$120 ($167.15) per barrel to US$135 a barrel for the FY2023, and from US$95 per barrel to US$110 per barrel for the FY2024.“We have also assumed higher yields t

$Apple(AAPL)$store workers in New York City's Grand Central Terminal working toward unionizing have come up with some concrete demands. [smile] [smile] [smile] What Happened: The store workers are urging Apple to pay a minimum hourly wage of $30, among other things, updated information posted on their website showed. [Sad] [Sad] [Sad] Calling itself Fruit Stand Workers United, the union is seeking benefits such as increased tuition reimbursement, faster accrued, and more vacation time, among other things. [LOL] [LOL] [LOL] As part of retirement benefits, the workers expect a higher match rate for 401 (k) plans and enrollment into pension plans. [Spurting] [Spurting] [Spurti

$SINGAPORE AIRLINES LTD(C6L.SI)$ has reversed into the black with a net profit of $370 million for the 1QFY2022/2023 ended June, compared to the $409 million loss in the 1QFY2021/2022 and compared to the $210 million loss in the 4QFY2021/2022.The higher net profit was mainly due to the better operating performance and the absence of non-cash impairment charges.During the quarter, the airline’s operating profit stood at $556 million making this SIA’s second-highest quarterly operating profit in its history after its highest ever quarterly operating profit of $675 million in the 3QFY2007/2008.The surge in operating profit came as the demand for air travel rose sharply after Singapore fully opened its borders to vaccinated travellers in April 2022.

$SINGAPORE EXCHANGE LIMITED(S68.SI)$ SGX CDP is bringing Marketnode’s blockchain-enabled bond issuance platform to market participants.Marketnode is a digital asset venture between SGX Group and Temasek.The platform will now enable debt issuers to shorten the settlement time for new-issue bond offerings to two days from five days, in line with the typical settlement period for the secondary bond market.How this works, is that the platform connects debt issuers into SGX CDP, facilitates the digitalisation of manual processes in bond issuance and allows the full elimination of paper trail with a 60% reduction in settlement time for issuers using the platform.The first transaction to be made on Marketnode’s “direct-to-depository” platform is OCBC B

$GENTING SINGAPORE LIMITED(G13.SI)$ Genting Singapore has reported a net profit of $84.4 million for 1HFY2022 ended June 2022, down 4% y-o-y.Revenue for the period was $663.1 million, up 20% y-o-y, with increases especially pronounced for its non-gaming and other sources.Adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (adjusted ebitda) was $289.0 million, compared to $256.8 million for the same period last year, an increase of 13%.However, higher utility tariffs and increased casino tax rates have impacted the overall profitability. Cost of sales for the period came in at $463 million, up 33% y-o-y.Earnings per share for the period was 0.7 cents, down from 0.73 cents this time last year.An interim dividend of 1 cent per sha

$SINGAPORE AIRLINES LTD(C6L.SI)$Big jump in SIA Group's passenger traffic; capacity expected to reach 61% of pre-COVID levels by May. [smile] [smile] [smile] SINGAPORE: A total of 893,000 passengers flew on Singapore Airlines (SIA) and Scoot last month, an almost nine-fold increase from a year ago as travel restrictions continue to ease.  [Happy] [Happy] SIA Group's latest operating results showed that its two airlines carried 790 per cent more passengers in March compared to a year ago. The 893,000 passengers last month is up from the 544,600 in February 2022. [LOL] [LOL] [LOL] “There was a significant increase in passenger demand at both Singapore Airlines (SIA) and Scoot in Marc

$COMFORTDELGRO CORPORATION LTD(C52.SI)$ Analysts are seeing taxi and public transport operator ComfortDelGro (CDG) as a beneficiary to Singapore’s reopening, as mobility gradually trends towards normalisation. With more room to move, the reopening is expected to drive sequential growth for CDG.This is already underway as CDG recently reported its 1QFY2022 ended March results, which saw PATMI increase by 30.4% y-o-y to $76.7 million, while revenue grew by 3.9% y-o-y to $895.9 million, thanks to higher contribution across most of the group’s business segment, except its taxi segment.During the period, CDG also noted that public transport ridership is “slowly improving”, while its rail ridership stood at around 65% to 70% of pre-pandemic levels.May

$UOL GROUP LIMITED(U14.SI)$ Analysts from CGS-CIMB Research and OCBC Investment Research are remaining positive on UOL GROUP LIMITED after the group reported a 306% y-o-y surge in earnings of $371.0 million for the 1HFY2022 ended June.Excluding fair value and other gains, core earnings or PATMI for the period grew 67% y-o-y to $181.1 million.To the OCBC team, UOL Group’s residential portfolio in Singapore has shown resilience despite the Covid-19 break.“Management is well known for its prudent land banking strategy. UOL also has a diversified investment properties portfolio with a strong presence in the commercial and hotel industries, thus allowing the group to generate recurring income streams, although near-term performance has been adversely

$GENTING SINGAPORE LIMITED(G13.SI)$ Genting Singapore makes strong return with greater tourism recovery seen in SingaporeRHB and Citibank believe that Genting Singapore’s RWS will also benefit and see similar improvements in results as MBSAnalysts are positive on Genting Singapore (GENS) on the back of a recovery in the tourism sector.RHB Group Research and Citibank Group Research have both seen an improvement in peer Marina Bay Sands (MBS), which is owned by Las Vegas Sands Corporation (LVS) due to the improvement in the tourism sector in Singapore, as borders reopen and testing requirements for tourists into Singapore are lifted.Hence, the two research houses are of the opinion that Genting Singapore’s Resort World Sentosa (RWS) will also bene

$RAFFLES MEDICAL GROUP LTD(BSL.SI)$ Dr Loo Choon Yong, executive chairman of Raffles Medical Group, has bought shares from the market after his company reported another record set of earnings that beat the expectations of some analysts.On Aug 1, Loo paid $1.18 each for 53,800 shares, bringing his direct stake to 200.5 million shares, equivalent to 10.824% - up from 10.821% earlier.In addition, Loo has a deemed interest in another 783.8 million shares, giving him a total interest of 984.35 million shares, or 53.138%.Earlier on Aug 1, Raffles Medical reported revenue of $382 million for 1HFY2022 ended June, up 11% y-o-y, as foreign patients returned. However, thanks to better margins, the company was able to report that earnings increased by 51% y

Although the Straits Times Index declined by 61 points week-on-week to end at 3,130, a late rebound on Sept 30 pared losses. Nonetheless, the week-on-week moves did nothing to strengthen indicators. Quarterly momentum has fallen towards its equilibrium, and equilibrium line support stopped the indicator from breaking below it. However, a break below its equilibrium line by quarterly momentum appears to be inevitable. Directional movement indicators are pointing to further declines. ADX is rising and the DIs are now negatively placed. Price movements during the week of Sept 26-30 caused the STI to fall below and stay below its moving averages. Immediate support is the three-times tested 3,120 level. Resistance is now at the 3,233 level. Since volume expanded on the days the STI declined, se

$MAPLETREE COMMERCIAL TRUST(N2IU.SI)$ The manager of MCT has posted gross revenue of $135.0 million for the 1QFY2022/2023, 8.8% higher than gross revenue of $124.1 million in the same period the year before.During the quarter, property expenses increased by 4.0% y-o-y to $28.3 million.Net property income (NPI) increased by 10.1% y-o-y to $106.7 million with an NPI margin of 79.0%The growth in earnings came in tandem with the relaxing of Covid-19 measures and the lower rental rebates, as well as higher contribution from VivoCity and Mapletree Business City (MBC).VivoCity saw tenant sales rebound by 53.3% y-o-y, surpassing pre-Covid-19 levels and outpacing the recovery of shopper traffic.As a result of lower rental rebates, higher rental income,