Quam Views QuamSwer Tony's Portfolio
Daily Quomments
quamnet.com
11 Sep ,2000
Pacific Century CyberWorks, #8, was the victim and the villain of a markdown of prices last week and on Friday in particular. On the week it fell by over 8% to Friday's close of $13.20. Following the captain and his officers each deserting the sinking ship over the past month, although despite their sales they still maintain a sizable stake, and then various joint venture partners deciding that this association could become embarrassing, and dissolving previous alliances. Even the steadfast Australian Telstar was finding its association to be a cumbersome axe to grind on its millstone and by the end of the week had drifted to A$6.26.
PCCW¡¦s percentage decline was only exceeded by the 12.7% decline in Daddy's Tom.com, #8001, which closed at $4.98, still a far cry from the IPO level at the height of the dot.com fever of $1.78, as some of its recent acquisitions on the mainland came into question.
Nevertheless this was not the trend of the technical and telecoms stocks as the biggest one China Mobile, #941, closed the week up 2.5%, although it had lost 50 cents to $61.25 on Friday, whilst China Unicom, #762, also gained 2.5% and even gained 10 cents to $18.55 on Friday.
However there had been broad retreat amongst these shares, as well as most others on Friday, with declines of 476 nearly treble gains of 167 issues. Turnover was slow, especially for a Friday, at $7.9 billion. The market, the HSI, had lost 156 points to 17,525 after slaloming from 17,512 to 17,228. Red chips and H shares were not spared, with red chips declining 22 points to 1,349 and H shares by 8 to 502. Chinese A markets saved the day being both marginally higher, Shanghai by 9 to 2,076 and Shenzhen 2 to 649 in a turnover of RMB14.5 billion.
Today is likely to see renewed selling, particularly on TMT shares, after a nerve-wracking Friday on the NASDAQ market, but not ameliorated by a slight fall on DJIA.
Manulife, #945, has had a weak week, falling from a high of $168 to Friday's close of $152.50. This company recently reported good, if not excellent, results for the first half of the present year. Dividends of Can 10 cents per quarter are still being meted out, and the next quarterly result will not be declared until November, so there is no apparent urgency to buy, but that could in fact be deceptive. It is often best to buy a share when the price is acceptable because if one waits until it hits bottom one can often miss it altogether, and Manulife at this price, with a potential price earnings ratio of 13 times, is a really excellent core investment for any portfolio.
China shares were mostly lower with Denway, #203, down 14 cents to $1.21 after calling for more capital to finance its new motor car assembly plant, but this section had generally been weak all through the week.
Property shares were mixed. Sun Hung Kai Props, #16, closed a dull week with a 75 cents fell to $73.25, culminating a losing priced of down by 5%. Henderson Land, #12 fell 40 cents to $43.90 capping a 1.5% less, Hysan, #14, continued to fall, this time by 15 cents to $11.15, after announcing some results which had been turned neutral.
Hongkong Gas, #3, produced a very commendable set of results, with profits being up 8% for the half year to $1.59 billion, or 31 cents per share, and during the second half there will be a bonus from property development, and hopefully this will entail a larger distribution, and a decision that Hongkong Gas will not continue to be the hip pocket for Mr Lee's expansionist ambitions.
The terms of the new MTR IPO have been completed but not revealed to anybody so mundane as the Hong Kong public, as they consider same Coloradan Cowboy outfit is more able to assess such an international issue! (End) |
