Dare To Catch A Falling Knife?

Last week Amedia's share price fell 26% in 5 trading days. I'm not sure why. It seems like there is no particular bad news, YET. 

Amedia's share price has been on a nice uptrend since Oct 2011. It has just released a strong earning recently and there is rumour that it is applying to transfer to main board. However, it has proposed a private placement of less than 10% of its share capital as well. 

     AMEDIA: At 100-day MA

Until today, Amedia's share price is still falling but seems to slow down a bit. Is it an opportunity to grab it now? Will it stage a rebound at 100-day moving average support? Or will it fill the gap below RM0.31?

There are a lot of strategies that one can take to invest or gamble in the stock market. Fundamentally, we can buy and hold long term. Technically we can buy according to various indicators from the price chart such as volume spike with price increase, MACD cross-over, price rebound/breakout at support/resistance level, low RSI etc. Some can even buy and sell without fundamental and technical analysis. They just rely on their "sixth sense", corporate news or exercise, and the law that everything that goes down must come up.

Personally, though I rarely buy shares which are dropping drastically, I do put an eye on them and place them on my watch list if I encounter one. The drop should be something like 10-20% or more in few days time. Of course, there must be a reason behind a sharp price drop, which can be serious or not so serious one. Is it because of company account fraud, poor financial report, loss of contract, court case, unfavourable news, change of management committee, share dumping by major shareholders, or just solely because of bad market sentiment? 

If it is just a short bear market run, then we can take the opportunity to grab some fundamentally-sound stocks. If it is other reasons, then there is always risk if you want to try your luck on them. You can end up catching a falling knife if you are not lucky.

In the early August and mid-September last year (2011), almost all the stocks in Bursa Malaysia suffered massive decline in few days time. However, if you were brave enough to pick them up when the falling momentum was interrupted, surely you could be smiling all the way as most of them staged a V-shape recovery.

Here are some examples of falling stocks and their outcome:

(A) Fall sharply but recover quickly, most fall are with the broad market

     AirAsia: Drop 22% and rebound higher

     Dialog: Drop 19% and recover well

     Kimlun: Drop 30% and correct shortly

     SPSetia: Drop 19% and got very lucky

     Cypark: Drop 20% and recovered in 3 days

     HiapTek: Drop 18% and a double bottom recovery

(B) Fall heavily but recover rather slowly

     MahSing: Drop 30% but recover steadily

     MSM: Drop 19% but slowly recover

     Sozo: Drop 22% and crawls back

     Sunway: Drop 35% after corporate exercise but worth the wait

     XinQuan: Drop 24% and there is still hope in China stock

(C) Caught A Falling Knife

     GPacket: Drop 27% and lingering there

     MEGB: Drop 30% and having real problem

     KNM: Drop 17% and drop and drop and drop

     MPAY: Drop 24% and never pay you back

     RA: Drop 38% and becoming trash paper?

     Ramunia: Drop 20% and will never see day light?

      Silver: Drop 50% and likely to be hopeless

Batu Kawan: A Pearl Yet To Be Polished

Batu Kawan is slowly emerging as the next Bayan Lepas in Penang?

So far three multinational companies have committed themselves to invest in a new plant in Batu Kawan. They are Japanese Honda, Swiss VAT and German Bosch. Among all these three companies, the construction of VAT and Honda plants have already started and the first to begin its operation should be VAT, a vacuum valve maker, who should be able to produce its first valve here by the end of 2012 or even earlier in September. Honda's plant is expected to be completed by the first half of 2013.

     Honda plant: looks like it is near to the bridge

Unfortunately, Bosch's RM2.2 billion solar panel manufacturing project was delayed due to cost and design reasons. Its construction is supposed to start at end of last year. Bosch said that it will come out with a new cost-effective design by the end of 2012 then only the construction can start. Nevertheless, Bosch has signed the Sales & Purchase Agreement for the land with Penang government and paid 10% deposit.

      VAT plant: small scale

For property in Batu Kawan, the existing ones are Intan Cempaka, Villa Tanjung Permai, Teratai Idaman by PDC property at the northern border which is further from the second bridge located at the south of Batu Kawan. Nearer to the bridge, PDC has Halaman Seroja and Dedaun luxury bungalows. It seems like there will be Dedaun phase 2 in the future next to the phase 1.

      Dedaun bungalows with man-made lake

Another completed development here in Bandar Cassia is the Crescentia Park by Equine/Abad Naluri, which consists of mainly low-medium cost affordable landed homes. This project is known for its delay for almost 3 years and just obtained OC in the end of 2011.

      Crescentia Park low cost houses

Besides, the state government has come out with a RM2.7 billion Bandar Cassia Affordable House Scheme by PDC on an 80ha plot of land. This project is designed by Singapore-based Surbana and will have about 12,000 medium-cost housing units, three football fields, a man-made river and recreation parks. The units will be housed in high-rise buildings of between nine and 16 storeys and ranging from 800sq ft to 1,000sq ft. They are priced at between RM72,500 and RM220,000 each with a free car parking lot. This freehold project has a 10-year development period over five phases with the Phase 1 expected to be ready by 2014.

      Bandar Cassia Affordable House Scheme

There are quite a lot of new factories under construction at the nearby Penang Science Park. With the completion of Penang Second Bridge expected in the end of 2013, the south-west of Province Wellesley could see a significant growth in term of population, jobs, infrastructures and housing projects. Areas nearby Batu Kawan such as Tambun, Simpang Ampat, Jawi, Juru etc should be able to reap some benefits from it.

However, if Pakatan Rakyat lose Penang state in the coming general election, will it be a different story?