The European Central Bank must be tired.

After pumping tens of billions of euro and dollars into its financial system over just the last two weeks, the ECB couldn’t muster enough energy to cut rates last Thursday. The ECB left their benchmark lending rate sitting at 4.25% after they concluded their policy meeting yesterday morning.

Considering major risks of bank failures rising to the surface in Europe, a handful of investment banks took the opportunity to make their predictions yesterday. Those predictions: The ECB will cut rates before the end of the year.

Well, so far the bank analysts who took a swing at the ECB’s plans are now 0 for 1. But let’s not count them out just yet…the ECB meets plenty more times before 2008 comes to an end.

But if you’re banking on a rate cut to further weigh down the euro, you may not have to wait for the ECB to officially lower interest rates. The situation in Europe (though the ECB’s monetary policy remains firm) will likely pressure the euro through year-end. The market is pricing this in already.

And if the dynamics supporting the dollar really gain momentum, a serious capitulation among dollar bears could extend dollar-strength well into 2009 and bring the euro all the way back down to earth.

I’ll admit it’s hard to come to grips with our current financial crisis.

You see I’ve become blended. In the process of all my research and discovery, I’ve lost a little bit of my individuality. I’m guessing you might be in the same boat. You’re concentrating so much on your own work, family and financial needs, that it can be difficult to remember that not everyone lives your life and faces completely different problems.

I know that’s where I am. And as I wade through this Rescue Bill, I keep flashing back to the reasons they tell us it’s “necessary.”

“…if we don’t pass this the economy will grind to a halt. More average, hard working citizens will be crushed and it’ll take years to pull ourselves up again.”

I took a walk around my neighborhood last night. It’s a large middleclass community here in south Florida. Lots of kids…great place to live. Yet it looks no different than it did two years ago.

Flashback to two years ago… The Florida real estate market was booming. The value of everyone’s homes was going up 25% a year. People were happy, new cars were in the driveways. Certain kids went to private schools.

And then last night, many people were out walking, running, biking…smiling and saying hello. The kids were out playing in their manicured yards next to the new cars shining in the driveways…nothing looked any different. Yet.

You see, for now, I’ve been fortunate. I don’t know anyone who’s lost his or her job in all this mess. No friends or even friends of friends who’ve lost their home to foreclosure. I don’t even know anyone who had to move because they couldn’t pay their mortgage.

So if this is what I’m seeing then (remember everything just seems to blend together these days) it’s easy to assume that everything is okay.

It’s easy to think this is JUST a Wall Street problem. Sure, it’s spilled over to cars and housing but these industries have always been – and will always be – in boom-bust cycles. Hot economy…lots of new cars and houses…secure jobs. It’s almost too easy to believe that nothing new is happening here…no national crisis.

But the fact is: This time IS different. The “mess” will be coming to my world. I know it. I can feel it. I have no proof…Everything still looks the same but…

This could all easily change. Neighbors won’t always be able to pay those mortgages. Friends can lose jobs. New car purchases will be put on hold. Cooling economy…layoffs…maybe even foreclosures.

The world is changing – and it’s about to reach your neighborhood and mine, whether we’re ready for it or not. And it will look a lot like the world you’ve been reading about.

Silver prices usually track and follow gold prices but often amplify them during declines. This is what happened recently during the sell-off on commodities markets. On July 15 silver closing price was $US19.12 an ounce. Last Friday, it closed at $US11.32. It’s a 41% decline in 2 months and a half, much more important than the pull back on gold prices.

The chart shows the strong positive correlation between gold (red line) and silver prices (black bars). Since the beginning of 2008, this correlation was almost perfect. However, since mid-August, silver prices have been failing to keep up the pace and are much more “heavy” than gold prices. What is going on?

Click to Enlarge

It’s likely that silver prices have been manipulated as they have been extremely oversold by 2 banks during August. The monthly Commitment of Traders (COT) report of the Comex is a document that tracks all the long and short positions held by large and small speculators, and by commercial, with the number of contracts opened week by week.

It appears that in July and early August, 2 US banks have massively increased (+547%, more than 6 times) their short positions on the silver market, for a total amount of 2.7 billion US Dollars. This is huge. This extreme dominating position (the 2 institutions were holding 61% of the short positions) has generated a panic movement which has driven prices downward very quickly.

More recently, the key factor of the sell-off is the massive liquidations of positions from hedge funds which chase cash as they deleverage and reduce drastically their risk exposure.

As a result the price action cleared the important support level that was backing the upside trend since August 2007 when prices fell below $US17 in early August.

The level of $US12.50 was another intermediary support which has been eventually cleared too on September 8. The price action bottomed at $US10.31, has bounced back sharply and has been falling back for two weeks now. The MACD and Momentum technical indicators trigger new bearish signals.

That’s why a pull back towards the recent low of August is likely. A potential double bottom on this support might be possible but anyway the upside is quite limited on the near-term. The recent rebound failed to break above the 38.2% retracement ratio of the 8-weeks decline (between points A and B on the chart). This resistance (around $US14) should be difficult to clear.

Indeed, many small players have been caught by the panic occurred in August and did not have time to close their long positions. Therefore they close their positions as soon as a rebound drives the price a to a significant resistance level. The coming weeks should be therefore a consolidation phase with potential rangy market between $US10.30 and $US 14.

For all the predictions that have been flying around, there is one thing which no-one seemed to predict - The impact on European economies.

The graphic below, from the BBC website shows the relative size of the recent bailouts. The graphic doesn’t include the European banks which have fallen over or have been propped up - Fortis, Dexia, Irish banks, Danish banks and now the German mortgage lender Hypo Real Estate. The Hypo bail out is calculated at approximately $90 billion.

The intriguing point here is that while house prices have sky rocketed in the UK, US and Australia over the last thirty years, in Germany they have barely kept pace with inflation. During the last ten years they haven’t even done that.

There are some idiosyncrasies in the German market. One of those is controls which dictate how much rent a landlord can charge. This doubtless means that German property investors have to be more constrained when buying a rental property knowing that they cannot increase rents to cover the cost of a higher purchase price.

Despite this, Germany’s largest mortgage lender is relying on a massive cash injection from the German government.

The reason we bring this up is that it goes to show that despite the heavy hand of government intervention that has contributed to a stifled German property market, it hasn’t prevented Hypo Real Estate from getting into strife.

Don’t expect to get any mortgage relief tomorrow. That’s the message from the Government. The banks are being coy. They can afford to be as everyone else is arguing on their behalf.

We’ve written before that we aren’t in the habit of telling people how to run a business. So we won’t break that habit. The individual banks should be in the best position to know what is and isn’t affordable for them to do.

But, it does seem as though they have been given a free kick. The expectation is that the banks won’t lower interest rates tomorrow if/when the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) cuts the Cash Rate by either 0.25% or 0.50%. Chances are that the banks will pass something on. It probably won’t be the whole lot.

The interest rate markets have priced in a 95% certainty of a 0.50% rate cut.

But considering all the talk of them potentially passing on nothing, a cut of 0.12% will be dressed up as extreme generosity by the banks.

Don’t get us wrong. We have questioned for some time how wise it is for the RBA to be cutting rates while inflation remains so high. Does the RBA really need to cut rates or is it just pandering to the share market?

An Interest Rate Cut That Won’t Make a Difference
We are a little bit confused about the rationale for cutting rates. Is it to reduce the funding costs for banks? Or is it to prevent the economy from falling into a recession?

Either way we can’t see that it is going to do anything to address the problems. Supposedly the problem in the credit markets is twofold. First is that banks are reluctant to lend to each other and to clients. Second is that they cannot get an accurate price for various credit securities held on their books.

An interest rate cut by the RBA wouldn’t seem to be the solution to either of these issues. Sure, it has the potential to give them access to funding at a marginally lower rate, but unless the banks are prepared to take on more risk by writing new loans then all it does is add to the banks’ bottom line.

Are banks prepared to take on additional risk? Anecdotally the answer seems to be no.

Considering we have been told by the banks, regulators and government that Australian banks are superbly capitalized then cutting rates would hardly likely to have much impact.

Now we’ll see how this bailout actually works. Or if it works. It didn’t do much to spark the market on Friday. The Dow fell 157 points. The ASX 200 futures pointed towards a one-percent fall at the opening today. Below, you’ll find our two-month forecast for the market (please include a pinch of salt).

–With Congressional action out of the way, expect to see Central Banks step forward and fire en masse at the forces of chaos. The RBA meets Tuesday. Judging by the action the currency markets (the Aussie dollar at a 14-month low), the market is pricing it at least a 50 basis point cut from the current cash rate of 7%.

–Will it make any difference? “A difference to whom?”, is probably the better question. It’s not very likely Aussie banks are going to pass on the rate cut to you. But if it makes the banks more likely to lend to one another, well then yes, it will make a difference.

–By the way, it’s a bit of a surprise the Fed didn’t cut rates on Sunday in the States. We expected a more coordinated international volley of rate cuts prior to Monday’s opening in Asia. But so far, nothing. Bernanke must be keeping his powder dry for an intra-day rate cut. You know, one of those days when the Dow is down a few hundred points before noon because another bank or insurance company fails.

–While we’re on the subject of banks, the IMF’s report on Australia released a few weeks ago provided three notable conclusions: Australian banks are dependent on international markets for about 40% of their funding, mortgages make up a large part of Aussie bank loan portfolios, and Aussie house prices are not terribly overvalued.

–The first conclusion has the most relevance for the market today. The IMF says the increase in the cost of funding highlights the vulnerability of Aussie banks to lock-ups in the short-term debt markets. The IMF reckons Australian banks have about $220 billion in short-term loans from foreign lender with maturities of 90 days or less. The big four account for $160 billion of that short-term lending.

–The means the entire Aussie banking system has to roll over about 20% of GDP every three months from foreign lenders. Do you think it’s easy to raise that kind of money easy in the current conditions? The IMF is pretty understated about it, but puts it this way, “This highlights the dependence of Australian banks on a stable international funding environment, which in current circumstances cannot be taken as a given.”

–And what’s the second vulnerability of the Aussie banking system? It’s the massive growth in mortgage lending. You can see it on the chart below. It shows that over 50% of the banking system’s loans are mortgages. But what does it mean?

–Well, it means the boom in house prices was fuelled by a mortgage lending boom. It’s a positive feedback loop. More lending leads to higher prices which leads to more lending which leads to higher prices. The IMF says much of it is driven by investors.

–”Investor activity in the residential property market has been a key driver of the recent property boom), with many investors pursuing the negative gearing strategy that is allowed by Australian tax rules. As a result, about one-third of all mortgage loans are for investor housing.”

–A deep contraction in bank lending would, presumably, end the feedback loop. It’s possible, of course, that investors give up on shares and move back into property as an asset allocation decision. But if banks cut off funding for investors in property, where does that leave house prices? Without new money being lent to support investors and first time buyers, shouldn’t Aussie house prices fall?

–The IMF, surprisingly we reckon, says house prices are only over- valued by between two to fifteen percent, depending on which model you use. Why the big difference? Different house price models use different variables (interest rates, affordability, immigration etc). But in general, the IMF doesn’t see a huge bubble in property prices. Hmm.

–What’s the risk? Well so far the default rates on Aussie mortgages are low compared to their American cousins. That means the banks probably don’t face big losses on their huge mortgage loan portfolios. We say ‘probably’ because confidence is a delicate quality. It can vanish quickly, both from a borrower’s and a lenders perspective.

–If the Aussie banks have trouble funding operations because global credit markets remain tight, we doubt even a full percentage point interest rate cut by the RBA will spur the banks into increasing local mortgage lending. Without that lending, it’s hard to see how property prices can climb. And if they’re not climbing, they’re either going nowhere in inflation adjusted terms…or falling.

–Here’s a quick forecast for you. Investors are going to crowd into government bonds waiting for the stock market to bottom. They will push yields on short-term U.S. Treasuries back toward zero. A huge reservoir of cash will build up as people wait to see how the bailout goes. The major indices are in for a few more 3-4% down days.

–Before the end of the year, perhaps after the election in the U.S. is resolved, you’ll see a big short-term rally in stocks and commodities. Those cash reservoirs will be deployed back into shares. Over sold blue-chips that generate a lot of free cash flow will be worth a look, as will be the mining juniors (who’ve suffered massive amounts of punishment.)

–But don’t forget about the big down days. The New York Times reported that AIG has already used US$61 billion of the $85 billion lent to it by the Federal Reserve a few weeks ago. AIG was supposed to use the Fed life line to engineer an orderly sell-off in its assets. But that doesn’t seem to have happened.

–Instead, the company has spent $53 billion “shoring up” its structured finance and securities lending business. What does that even mean? Uh oh.

–Moody’s heard the news and downgraded AIG’s unsecured debt on Friday. If other ratings agencies follow that move, and if other types of AIG debt are downgraded, the company is going to have trouble borrowing again and may have to hit up the Fed for more money.

–And remember, AIG sold credit-default swap insurance to investment banks and other parties. That insurance allowed those parties to load- up on mortgage-backed investments that otherwise (without the default insurance) would have been too risky. Without that insurance, those parties have to sell their mortgage-backed assets.

–It was the near collapse of AIG that brought the financial markets to the very brink of systemic crisis. Don’t be surprised if AIG is in first in line for some of Treasury Secretary Paulson’s $700 billion slush fund. And don’t be surprised if the markets begin to lose confidence that the Plan is going to work.

The last time we talked about the iron junior market was in the first half of the year. Since then, most of the best quality reserves have been bought out. China’s playing for keeps now. Midwest (ASX:MIS) went for a 53% premium. Portman (ASX:PMM) got a 19% better offer three weeks ago.

But there are still good reserves out there.

In fact, most of the iron plays out side of Fortescue (ASX:FMG), Rio Tinto (ASX:RIO) and BHP (ASX:BHP) are now back to pre-boom levels.

Guess what? You get to start from the ground floor again. So here’s a quick money-map of the iron sector. There are three to look at this month, for three different reasons.

For sheer volume overall Gindalbie (ASX:GBG) wins. It simply has more iron. The company is sitting on a bunch of scattered tenements. The best is the Karara reserve, with over 500 million tones of economically mine-able iron.

A little more organized is Mount Gibson (ASX:MGX). It’s the latest fending off takeover rumours. The company’s producing - but it’s finding more iron than its digging up. According its last reserve statement from last month it added another 2 million tonnes of iron to its reserves.

Atlas Iron (ASX:AGO) just upgraded its indicated resource by 756 million tonnes yesterday. That’s not necessarily all money in the bank. It’s just a huge upgrade in a market that doesn’t care at the moment.

Kris Sayce has an over-sold, under-loved favourite iron play too. He just told his premium small-cap readers about it.

By the way, here are two to avoid: Strike Resources (ASX:SRK) and Territory Resources (ASX:TTY). They’ve both had recent troubles with loans or financing. In this credit (and equity) market, that’s not worth the risk for retail investors. Juniors need financing.

Buy $3 in Cash for $1

And on that note, there’s one more to look at. Cape Lambert Iron (ASX:CFE).

We’ve only looked at this briefly, so we could be wrong. You’re welcome to inform us if you know better at moneymorning@moneymorning.com.au.

But after selling its major iron project to China Metallurgical, the company reckons it is sitting on $400 million in cash. It can invest that in new iron projects, or it can develop anything other current prospects.

It’s trading at a market cap of $116 million today. According to the last annual report, it has $5 million in debt.

That means $395 million in cash is selling for $116 million. At face value, you can buy $3 for $1.

Cape Lambert jumped 30% yesterday. A big shareholder is trying to replace the board. So the company is shaking things up. It’s organising a $100 million payout to shareholders too. Even those don’t seem to warrant such a massive discount to this kind of liquidity though.

What we like about it most? Basically, the stock has its finger on the investment trigger. Right now, when mining projects are selling cheaper than they have in 4 years, it has a mountain of cash to buy them with.

Australia’s Earnings Outperform

Meanwhile, Australia’s earnings outperformed expectations at the latest annual report. Punters expected the trade balance to be $200 million in August. It came in at almost $1.4 billion.

It’s still a coal and iron story. It will be until exporting contracts are renegotiated. Cheaper oil imports helped too.

The Aussie dollar, meanwhile is trading at a 14-month low. We’ll say it again. Australia is the most undervalued stock in the global market.

The cheapest energy usually wins. That’s what history tells us anyway. Coal, oil and gas have always been cheaper than the rest. We had big North Sea reserves churning out black goop all through the 90s. The cheap oil kept other energies from getting started.

Now we have $94 oil in a global recession. That’s how scarce things are. But governments and central banks worldwide are flooding the global economy with money. French leader Nicholas Sarkozy is proposing a 300 billion Euro bailout now. Central banks worldwide have been flooding the economy with new money all week.

The problem? They’re like a smallish 6-year old trying to negotiate a full-size fire-hose. They can’t quite control where the liquidity goes.

It’ll go where it’s treated best. Some will head to gold or safety.

But some of it (combined with high levels of saved Asian cash) will probably return to the energy sector through speculators at some point. Peak oil will still be around when the banking crisis is over.

That’s a while away yet. But it’s time to start looking through ideas now. And the alternative energy sector has developed a lot since the last round of cheap money.

Ausra’s an interesting company. It isn’t listed, unfortunately. But we like the idea at face value. Its solar panels are cheaper than the expensive, mainstream photovoltaic technology.

Gordon Brown confirms that to all intents and purposes all UK savings are guaranteed to £50,000 per depositor per financial group. This is a reaction to the the Irish governments decision to guarantee all depositor savings at 100% for 2 years which has ignited a flood of scared monies seeking refuge within Irish banks that have operations within the UK. This has resulted in increasing calls from media commentators and politicians for the UK government to follow suit with a similar 100% blanket guarantee.

As reported in the Independent - The Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg last night said his party would support a blanket guarantee for all deposits in the British banking system. He said: “We will co-operate fully with the Government in passing depositor protection legislation next week. “But today a copper-bottomed guarantee that all people’s money in British banks is safe must be the priority. Then, in the longer term, all parties must work together to find common solutions for a re-regulation of the City.”

The Irish Times Reports - David Cameron also urged the Labour government to produce legislation as early as next week to protect people’s savings and deposits, ensure quick payout’s and allow everyone “the comfort and security of knowing that whatever happens, their money is safe”.

However some commentators are making the mistake of comparing a small country such as Ireland which sits under the Euro umbrella which is on the periphery of the worlds financial system against the UK with its own currency and is one of the primary centres for international finance. The Irish liability for the 100% guarantee is estimated at some $560 billion. This is set against the total liability to the UK government for the £50,000 guarantee which is estimated at $1.8 trillion. However a 100% guarantee of ALL depositors would multiply the exposure. It is difficult to estimate the total liability but at a rough guide it would be in the region of $4.5 trillion as it would encompass all foreign depositors whether they are individuals, corporations, banks or even other governments. The magnitude of exposure of twice UK Gross Domestic Product would given a worse case scenario of total financial meltdown could really prove apocalyptic for the UK economy, we would be talking along the lines of the Weimar Republic when Germany was forced to print ever increasing amounts of money to cover the financing of the growing debt mountain which lead to hyper inflation and a collapse of the German economy into a prolonged depression and a public loss of confidence in democracy, eager for a fascist dictator to rescue them from the economic abyss.

The current UK government debt is officially put at some $1 trillion, a financial collapse of the financial system would see this explode to as much as $6 trillion as guide as to how much risk the country would be put under and therefore a risk of a collapse in sterling which would further intensify the crisis by several orders of magnitude. The situation would be far worse then the cost of rebuilding a collapsed financial system following the failure of most of the banks, therefore this explains government reluctance to date to explicitly raise the savings limit from £35,000 per depositor whilst repeatedly alluding to NO retail bank would be allowed to go bust and that no depositor has lost a penny to date, which is true, however in the face of total collapse of the banking system the government would put the countries financial survival first which is how it should be.

Therefore many commentators need to revisit their conclusions in arriving at the suggestion that the UK should follow the lead of a small country such as Ireland due to the potential consequences of a loss of confidence in sterling. Similarly those agreeing with bailouts should recognise that there is no free lunch and in the long-run the cost will be greater than the benefit of preventing bankrupt banks from going bankrupt. All countries that announce huge bailouts will experience subdued economic activity and higher inflation for many years proportionate to the level of bailouts as a % of GDP.

Countries Can Go Bankrupt Too!

Whilst we ponder the deepening financial crisis where individuals are going bankrupt, corporations are going bankrupt, and lately the biggest banks in the world are going bankrupt. Savers should not forget that countries can also go bankrupt as the Germany of the 1920’s clearly illustrated that was saddled with huge debt burden following the end of World War 1 resulted in hyper-inflation and the systematic destruction of the value of savings as the German government printed money in response to Allied government demands for payment of War reparations, similarly governments now declaring ever larger bailouts and more importantly unlimited savings guarantees that if push comes to shuv would effectively bankrupt the said countries should their bluff ever be called. For the only way such guarantees could be financed would be by printing near unlimited amounts of money which would lead to hyper inflation and a collapse in the value of the currency and hence value of savings and the the whole economy. Therefore bailouts of the kinds that are being proposed are highly dangerous as they could lead to literally an out of control cascading currency collapse and loss of confidence in FIAT currencies which would result in a barter system economy, thus extreme economic deflation along the lines of the 1930’s Great Depression.

In that light, the Irish decision is seen as a highly risky short-term attempt to bolster the collapsing Irish banking system, which would bankrupt Ireland should they have to actually pay out on their promise.

However Ireland’s action in part is highly selfish as the country is part of the EURO single currency mechanism and thus creates a huge problem for the other European countries that are witnessing a flight of capital, or mini-runs on their banks in favour of the the Irish banks with 100% guarantees, as all savings fall under the umbrella of the EURO single currency therefore money deposited with Irish banks is effectively collectively insured by all EURO countries in the form currency stability, which under normal conditions market forces would lead to a selling of the currency that is extending its liabilities which obviously is not happening in Irelands case due to the under-writing of Irelands currency by the whole of the EURO block. This will undoubtedly lead to actions amongst other EURO countries or by the European Commission in an attempt to reverse the Irish decision due to the impact on the whole of the European Banking System.

The Irish action is in many ways reminiscent of what followed the great crash during the 1930’s as governments sought to protect themselves by taking actions that destroyed international capital flows and trade. Therefore this could set in motion a chain reaction amongst governments where the net outcome would be to hasten the already trend in motion towards an economic depression as the global credit freeze turns into a credit ice age, especially if the next step is taken where savers suddenly realise that countries could also go bankrupt given the risk under written!

Gordon Brown realising the ramifications of the Irish decision has been calling on the Irish Government to comply with European Union competition law by reversing its decision, however what is likely to happen is that cry’s will go out across Europe to match the Irish guarantee which will meet much resistance from Germany that still bares deep scars from the consequences of hyper-inflation and therefore will be fully aware of the consequences of such action. It will be interesting to see what the outcome will be, for the more countries that follow Irelands example the more likely that the Euro will suffer in relative terms.

UK Banks with 100% Guarantees

The UK government does offer a 100% guarantee on several UK banks which includes National Savings and the Post Office as well as nationalised bank of Northern Rock which has become the toxic waste dump for nationalised mortgage backed securities such as those from Bradford and Bingley who’s savers also have temporarily 100% guarantee.

• National Savings
• Post Office
• Northern Rock
• Bradford and Bingley - temporary
• Irish banks for 2 years

And again savers should not forget that the first £50,000 is secured at 100% amongst all UK banks under the FSCS (the Financial Services Compensation Scheme).

United States $700 to $820 Bailout Plan

The amended and inflated bailout plan was passed by the Senate yesterday and also looks set to be passed by the House of Representatives today. The key problem with the plan is that a. It is not enough to do the job, and b. That the US Treasury will not be paying market prices, as the whole problem with the frozen mortgage backed securities market is that the banks are not pricing their mortgage securities at the market price as if they were then they would be bankrupt. Therefore despite whatever spin the politicians put on the bailout plan, the US tax payer will be looking at an instant loss of some 50% or more on the price paid. The only positive from the revised bank is the increase in FDIC depositor guarantee from $100,000 to $250,000.

ALLGREEN PROPERTIES, citi maintain BUY with target price $0.8($1.16)

CAPITACOMMERCIAL TRUST, nom maintain STRONG BUY with target price $2.33

CAPITARETAIL CHINA TRUST, jpm maintain OVERWEIGHT with target price
$1.55
($1.52)

CAPITALAND, citi maintain SELL with target price $3.11($3.90)
CAPITALAND, cl maintain BUY with target price $4.82(from $5.45)
CAPITALAND, jpm maintian OVERWEIGHT with target price $7

CREATIVE, mac maintain UNDERPERFORM with target price $4.20($5)

FIRST RESOURCES, citi maintain BUY with target price $1.09($1.42)

INDOFOOD AGRI, csfb maintain OUTPERFORM with target price $1.50($2.40)

NOL, db maintain BUY with target price $3.08
NOL, gs maintain SELL with target price $2

PAN HONG, cimb downgrade to NEUTRAL with target price $0.21($0.51)

PARKWAY, cimb maintain OUTPERFORM with target price $1.46

SGX, dbs downgrade to SELL with target price $4.80($7)

SINGTEL, daiwa maintain HOLD with target price $3.84
SINGTEL, mac maintain NEUTRAL with target price $3.5

SPH, jpm maintain OVERWEIGHT
SPH, nom maintain NEUTRAL with target price $4.34

STARHUB, daiwa maintain OUTPERFORM with target price $2.94

ST ENGINEERING, citi maintain BUY with target price $3.20

TOTAL ACCESS COMMUNICATION, uob maintain BUY with target price BT 55.43

WILLAS-ARRAY, ocbc downgrade to SELL with target price $0.09($0.18)

WILMAR, csfb upgrade to OUTPERFORM with target price $3.88($4.80)

WINGTAI, citi maintain BUY with target price $1.20($2)
WINGTAI, uob maintain BUY with target price $1.35($1.90)

YANLORD LAND, cimb maintain OUTPERFORM with target price $1.32($3.07)