Invest Positively

Did SGX lie to the public? Nowhere to hide now!

Yeap Wai Kong calls it an affront to common sense, sticks to court action

  (From left) Madhavan, Ong and Chong are appealing against their convictions and sentences in a case over Airocean's disclosures about a late-2005 corruption investigation of former Airocean chief executive Thomas Tay, who was later found guilty

Just the fact that a company chief executive is called for questioning by the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau (CPIB) doesn’t automatically make it material and disclosable information, lawyers for former directors of Airocean argued in court yesterday.

In her excellent commentary, ‘Why S-chip fraud cases keep cropping up’ (BT, Feb 17), NUS finance professor Qian Meijun identified the local market’s low valuation as one reason for the scandals relating to China stocks that investors have had to endure over the past five years.

Investor Jim Rogers, the chairman of Rogers Holdings who predicted a global commodities rally in 1999, said Myanmar is embracing reform as China did decades earlier and he’s optimistic about the resource-rich nation’s prospects.

The Court of Appeal issued a landmark grounds of decision yesterday detailing why it dismissed a bid by Kevin Lew to overturn a High Court ruling that found him liable in Singapore’s first civil penalty action for insider trading.

In last week’s ‘Trading in SIPs: all concerned have to raise their game’ (BT, Hock Lock Siew, Jan 25), we made the point that new rules governing the trading of Specified Investment Products (SIPs) that require investors as well as dealers to pass exams before trading in SIPs could do with a bit of fine-tuning in order to be truly useful in safeguarding investors’ interests. Two areas spring to mind - the present inclusion of stocks that are listed on foreign exchanges as SIPs and the people who are exempt from the exams.

Introduced with the purpose of riding on China’s economic growth and to develop Singapore’s financial market, the listing of Chinese firms in Singapore (S-chips) has, unwillingly and sadly, resulted in a heartbreaking experience for many Singapore investors and Chinese firms themselves.

Investors should have 100 per cent of investments in equities because of valuations and higher returns than bonds, said Laurence Fink, chief executive of BlackRock Inc, the world’s largest money manager.