6 out of 10 KOSPI equities trade below 1x P/B

6 out of 10 KOSPI equities trade below 1x P/B

Kim Byung-ho, Cho Si-young

2014.01.17 16:49:12

Six out of 10 constituents of the benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) saw their market capitalization fall short of the book value as the index has not yet recovered to the 2,000 mark earlier this year. Views are divided over this situation. Some interpret it as a rise in the number of relatively undervalued stocks while others believe it reflects heightened fears over growth. In these circumstances, investors are anguishing over how to pick stocks. 61 percent or 364 out of 597 listed firms on the KOSPI, on which data is available, had a price-to-book value ratio (P/B ratio) of below one time, according to FnGuide that performed the analysis commissioned by the Maeil Business Newspaper Friday. The analysis is based on closing prices on January 16 and net asset values as of end of third quarter of last year. A P/B ratio under one time indicates a company’s market cap is smaller than its liquidation value. This boils down to the fact that six out of 10 listed firms traded below their liquidation value. The financial investment industry recommends hunting for stocks with high return on equity (ROE) and low PBR and low price-to-earnings ratio (PER) as a way to choose shares. “PBR and PER, which compare assets and earnings on financial statements with share prices, are reliable gauges to select cheap shares,” said Choi Chang-ho, head of investment strategy at Shinhan Investment. Among the KOSPI stocks with over 100 billion won ($94.3 million) market cap, Hyosung, SK, Seah Steel and Korean Reinsurance meet all of the criteria of high ROE, low PBR and low PER, according to Daishin Securities.

There Still Is a Way Out of Thailand’s Crisis

There Still Is a Way Out of Thailand’s Crisis

By Vikram Nehru on 2:48 pm January 17, 2014.
Thailand is about to inflict considerable harm to itself. For two months now, tens of thousands have taken to the streets to protest against the government of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra and are now trying to take their protest to a new level by shutting down Bangkok. The army is faced with a difficult choice – permit continued chaos and risk an escalation in violence, or engineer yet another coup (Thailand has had 18 coups since it became a constitutional monarchy in 1932). Either path would mean a setback to democracy and a body blow to the economy; neither provides a solution to the political impasse at the heart of the crisis. The tragedy is that the two protagonists in the confrontation – the opposition Democrat Party and the incumbent Pheu Thai party – have dug themselves in too deep to pull back. Ironically, a political solution is possible. But its prospects are remote because it will take reasonableness all around to reach it. Read more of this post

Thai govt sticks to Feb 2 snap election; Oust me by voting, Yingluck urges opponents

Thai govt sticks to Feb 2 snap election

Saturday, January 18, 2014 – 03:00

Nirmal Ghosh

Indochina Bureau Chief In Bangkok

The Straits Times

Thailand’s embattled government will go ahead with a snap election on Feb 2, raising the probability of more aggressive protests by groups intent on derailing it and forcing caretaker premier Yingluck Shinawatra out of office. Read more of this post

Programming may become part of school curriculum in Singapore

Programming may become part of school curriculum

SINGAPORE — School children may soon learn computer programming as part of the school curriculum, include computer coding, which would enable them to develop mobile apps.

BY –

1 HOUR 33 MIN AGO

SINGAPORE — School children may soon learn computer programming as part of the school curriculum, include computer coding, which would enable them to develop mobile apps. Read more of this post

More 24-hour gyms in S’pore; A US-based fitness chain aims to open 100 24-hour gyms in Singapore’s heartland within five years

More 24-hour gyms in S’pore

Rachael Boon, The Straits Times/ANN, Singapore | Business | Thu, January 16 2014, 6:00 PM

A US-based fitness chain aims to open 100 24-hour gyms in Singapore’s heartland within five years. Anytime Fitness, which operates on a franchise model, specialises in what it calls cosy gyms – centres of about 3,500 sq ft, far smaller than “big box” gyms that can be 20,000 sq ft. Read more of this post

Imposing a cap on borrowing across all Singapore moneylenders could drive the business underground to loan sharks

Lending cap ‘could drive borowers to loan sharks’

Saturday, Jan 18, 2014

Hoe Pei Shan

The Straits Times

SINGAPORE- Imposing a cap on borrowing across all moneylenders could drive the business underground to loan sharks, say industry players. Several managers of licensed moneylending outfits told The Straits Times most of their clients have loans from four to six other lenders on average and that a cap could, in theory, help rein in over-borrowing – or send them seeking cash elsewhere. Read more of this post

Are Singapore home prices set for a bruising?

Are Singapore home prices set for a bruising?

By: Leslie Shaffer | Writer for CNBC.com

CNBC.com | Wednesday, 15 Jan 2014 | 6:20 PM ET

Singapore’s home prices could fall more than expected this year and unwinding cooling measures may not staunch any damage, Nomura said. Most analysts already expect the city-state’s private home prices to decline, forecasting a peak-to-trough correction of around 10 to 15 percent through 2016, with a drop of around 5 percent this year, Min Chow Sai, an analyst at Nomura, said in a note. Read more of this post

Curbing fraud, corruption

Updated: Saturday January 18, 2014 MYT 11:12:09 AM

Curbing fraud, corruption

BY WONG WEI-SHEN

FRAUD, bribery and corruption are issues that have always been a sensitive subject, especially where Malaysian businesses are concerned. Although these days, many companies have taken it upon themselves to put policies and controls in place to curb those issues, the underlying notion that fraud, bribery and corruption is part and parcel of doing business in Malaysia, unfortunately still exists. Read more of this post

7-Eleven makes another attempt to list on Bursa Malaysia

Updated: Saturday January 18, 2014 MYT 11:18:13 AM

7-Eleven makes another attempt to list on Bursa Malaysia

BY JOHN LOH

AFTER getting canned in November, will the initial public offering (IPO) of Berjaya Corp Bhd’s 7-Eleven franchise be third time lucky? At first glance, the listing structure is not much different from what was proposed last year, according to the draft prospectus for the more aptly-named 7-Eleven Malaysia Holdings Bhd (formerly Seven Convenience Bhd). Read more of this post

Brazil’s Class Struggle Goes to the Mall

Brazil’s Class Struggle Goes to the Mall

LORETTA CHAO and ROGERIO JELMAYER

Jan. 17, 2014 7:59 p.m. ET

Protests broke out at the Campo Limpo mall in São Paulo on Thursday against an injunction to forbid rolezinhos, big gatherings in shopping malls. Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

SÃO PAULO—For as long as many can remember, a rolezinho was slang for a gathering of teenagers in a public place. The teens organize a group and arrange a meeting place, perhaps outdoors, in a park. In São Paulo, it is often at a shopping mall, a favorite weekend hangout across all social classes. Read more of this post

Valuations: Is this nuts? Investors appear to have taken leave of their senses, pumping cash into projects regardless of profitability

January 17, 2014 7:55 pm

Valuations: Is this nuts?

By Paul Murphy

Investors appear to have taken leave of their senses, pumping cash into projects regardless of profitability

This week Google agreed to pay $3.2bn for a privately owned four-year-old start-up. Nest specialises in smart gadgets for the home, such as a WiFi-enabled thermostat that might cut heating and cooling bills. Read more of this post

The U.S. government’s bitcoin bonanza: How, where and when to sell?

The U.S. government’s bitcoin bonanza: How, where and when to sell?

7:17pm EST

By Emily Flitter

NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. prosecutors in Manhattan are sitting on a multimillion-dollar bitcoin gold mine. And it could get much bigger. Federal authorities hauled in 29,655 units of the digital currency – worth $27 million at current exchange rates – through an official forfeiture by Bitcoin this week. Read more of this post

The Good, Bad, and Ugly: A Guide to 2014; The year ahead presents challenges as well as investment opportunities, say 10 Barron’s Roundtable experts

SATURDAY, JANUARY 18, 2014

The Good, Bad, and Ugly: A Guide to 2014

By LAUREN R. RUBLIN | MORE ARTICLES BY AUTHOR

The year ahead presents challenges as well as investment opportunities, say our 10 Roundtable experts.

We wish we could share the official view of the Barron’s Roundtable regarding the economy and markets in 2014. But it was impossible to find much common ground this year among our passionate, principled, and occasionally pugilistic panelists, whether the discussion veered toward interest rates, stock prices, GDP, or lunch. Read more of this post

The Future Of Jobs: The Onrushing Wave; Previous technological innovation has always delivered more long-run employment, not less. But things can change

The Future Of Jobs: The Onrushing Wave

THE ECONOMIST

JAN. 17, 2014, 11:55 AM 23,164 69

Previous technological innovation has always delivered more long-run employment, not less. But things can change.

IN 1930, when the world was “suffering…from a bad attack of economic pessimism”, John Maynard Keynes wrote a broadly optimistic essay, “Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren”. It imagined a middle way between revolution and stagnation that would leave the said grandchildren a great deal richer than their grandparents. But the path was not without dangers. Read more of this post

The Bull Market: Long in the Tooth; Are the good times over? We look at the 35 bull markets since 1900

The Bull Market: Long in the Tooth

Are the good times over? We look at the 35 bull markets since 1900

MARK HULBERT

Updated Jan. 17, 2014 6:31 p.m. ET

The U.S. stock market is more overvalued than it was at the majority of the past century’s peaks, according to six well-known valuation ratios. That doesn’t mean the bull market is coming to an end, of course, since some past bull markets were even more overvalued when they topped out. Furthermore, no two market peaks behave the same way. Read more of this post

Refighting the ‘mortgage wars’ could bring new risks to the housing market

Refighting the ‘mortgage wars’ could bring new risks to the housing market

By Steven Pearlstein, Saturday, January 18, 10:08 AM

In the five years since the 2008 financial crisis, there have been various attempts to make sense of what happened and why.

The latest — and, to my mind, one of the more convincing — comes in a new book, “Mortgage Wars,” by Timothy Howard, the former chief financial officer of housing finance giant Fannie Mae. Howard’s thesis is that the crisis was the result of a bitter and protracted political war that pit Fannie and its corporate cousin Freddie Mac against a group of giant banks and ideological foes determined to break their lucrative hold over the $11 trillion American home-mortgage market. In the end, Howard argues, the banks prevailed long enough to lead themselves and the rest of us over the cliff. Read more of this post

Pimco’s Brazilian Love Affair Ends Decade After Lula Bet

Pimco’s Brazilian Love Affair Ends Decade After Lula Bet

Bill Gross is souring on Brazil.

After the country’s real-denominated debt plunged 13.6 percent last year, more than the 9 percent average decline for developing nations, Pacific Investment Management Co.’s chief investment officer said Jan. 15 that Brazil was no longer a preferred market. His $237 billion Total Return Fund cut Brazilian assets to 3.27 percent in December from 4.18 percent three months earlier, its most recent investment report showed. Read more of this post