Express news paper 08 april 2018

Thai health officials are expected to gather more data in coming weeks as the highly transmissible BA.4 and BA.5 sub-variants of Omicron spread in Thailand. There is a new wave of the two Omicron sub-variant infections hitting a number of countries that had, until recently, seen a large drop in their Covid case loads. Germany, Italy, Australia, Taiwan, Brazil, UK, Mexico, the US states of Florida, Texas and New York, Chile and Greece are some of the countries which have seen sudden spikes and rises in hospital admissions. South Africa and Portugal both had sudden spikes of the new sub-variant area and are now in the decline phase. The UK, for example, is now going through what it describes as its third major wave of infections over the past 6 months. An estimated 1.7 million people in the UK were infected in the 7 days leading up to June 18, a 23% rise on the week before and a 43% jump from the previous week. With people out and about for the region’s summer, medical … [Read more...] about Thailand News Today | Police arrested for bribery over Chinese adult films

Sumeet Mehta and Smita Deorah, founders of LEAD School With students making their way back to physical classes, school edtech is witnessing a major boom and opening up opportunities to double down on growth and innovation plans, according to Sumeet Mehta, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and co-founder of LEAD School. “When consumer ed-tech zigs, school ed-tech zags,” said Mehta in a recent episode of Bits to Billions. According to Mehta, trends in consumer ed-tech are not relevant in school ed-tech. He said, “Our trajectory is inverse to what is happening in consumer ed-tech. On the contrary, I think it's a great opportunity for companies like ours to really double down on helping students overcome the last two years of the learning gap.” School Ed-tech defying larger Ed-tech trends Mehta’s comments follow a series of layoffs, shutdowns, and restructuring in the consumer edtech sector with companies such as Unacademy, Vedantu and so on, letting go of employees in … [Read more...] about School-based startups defying larger edtech trends; opportunity to double down on growth: LEAD co-founder Sumeet Mehta

- A + A KUALA LUMPUR (June 27): Financially troubled Sapura Energy Bhd returned to the black in the first quarter ended April 30, 2022 (1QFY23) with a net profit of RM91.93 million, on the back of foreign exchange gains arising from the appreciation of the US dollar against the ringgit. In the preceding quarter, it had posted its biggest ever net loss of RM6.78 billion. In the same period last year, Sapura Enery had posted a net loss of RM97.08 million. In a Bursa Malaysia filing on Monday (June 27), the oil and gas service provider said its quarterly revenue, however, declined by 39.75% to RM886.08 million against RM1.47 billion in the year-ago corresponding period, due to lower project activities from its engineering and procurement (E&C) segment. Earnings per share for the quarter amounted to 0.58 sen, from losses per share of 0.61 sen. On a quarterly basis, revenue more than doubled from RM426.60 million in 4QFY22. Sapura Energy said that it continues … [Read more...] about Sapura Energy returns to black in 1Q with net profit of RM91.93 mil on forex gains

- A + A KUALA LUMPUR (June 27): MyNews Holdings Bhd posted its ninth consecutive quarter in the red, with a net loss of RM10.22 million in the second quarter ended April 30, 2022 (2QFY22), from RM10.32 million a year ago. The results came amid higher revenue, offset by higher cost of sales and expenses amid an increase in the number of outlets which also contributed to higher footfall. Quarterly revenue rose 35.74% to RM141.10 million, from RM103.94 million, the group said. Losses per share stood at 1.51 sen, from 1.5 sen. On a quarterly basis, the group’s net loss widened in 2QFY22, from a net loss of RM7.86 million in 1QFY22, while revenue improved by 1.2% from RM139.44 million. The weaker quarter-on-quarter performance was due to additional costs incurred in establishing and promoting the launch of 26 new CU stores in the quarter, it said. For the six-month period ended April 30 (1HFY22), the group’s net loss narrowed to RM18.08 million from a net loss of … [Read more...] about MyNews maintains expansion mode as it continues to bleed in 2QFY22

Borrowing costs of Indian states are likely to rise in the coming weeks as the Reserve Bank of India ’s (RBI) rate hike cycle becomes more entrenched and the supply of state papers rises, money market experts and bankers told Moneycontrol on June 27. A majority of those expect the yield on the 10-year state development loan (SDL) to rise above 8 percent in the coming weeks. “In the first quarter of this fiscal year, supply of debt was limited. But in the second half of this fiscal year, we expect state debt supply to rise and that should put upward pressure on (state) bond yields,” said Ritesh Bhusari, deputy general manager, treasury, at South Indian Bank. To put in perspective, the cut-off yield for 10-year SDL ranged from 7.83 percent to 7.86 percent at an auction on June 21, according to data from the RBI. Prior to that, at an auction on June 14, Tamil Nadu’s 10-year paper was sold at a cut-off yield of 7.94 percent, while Haryana’s 10-year bond was sold at 7.95 percent. … [Read more...] about States’ borrowing cost set to rise on higher debt supply, RBI’s rate cues, experts say

This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily, on April 16, 2020 . - A + A Solid Automotive Bhd (-ve) TRADING of shares in Solid Automotive Bhd (fundamental: 0.75/3, valuation: 0.9/3) triggered our momentum algorithm yesterday for the seventh time this year. The last time the counter triggered our momentum algorithm was last Friday. Solid Automotive shares closed 6.56% or two sen lower at 28.5 sen. Some 6.06 million shares were traded, more than four times the counter’s 200-day average trading volume of 1.36 million shares. Solid Automotive’s net profit for the second quarter ended Oct 31, 2019 fell to RM112,000 from RM715,000 a year earlier, due to higher operating expenses, though revenue doubled to RM72.03 million from RM35.86 million. For the cumulative six months ended Oct 31, 2019, the group’s net profit rose 28% to RM1.09 million from RM851,000, while revenue more than doubled to RM137.08 million from RM65.36 million. Solid … [Read more...] about Stock With Momentum: Solid Automotive

This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily, on April 21, 2020 . - A + A SOLID Automotive Bhd (-ve) Solid Automotive shares closed unchanged at 31.5 sen. Some 6.17 million shares were traded, over four times the counter’s 200-day average volume of 1.45 million shares. Solid Automotive’s net profit for the second quarter ended Oct 31, 2019 fell to RM112,000, from RM715,000 a year earlier, no thanks to higher operating expenses, though revenue doubled to RM72.03 million from RM35.86 million. For the cumulative six months ended Oct 31, 2019, the group’s net profit rose 28% to RM1.09 million from RM851,000, while revenue more than doubled to RM137.08 million from RM65.36 million. Solid Automotive is involved in the trading of automotive electrical parts and components. It is the sole distributor of automotive electrical parts under the Lucas brand. … [Read more...] about Stock With Momentum: SOLID Automotive

What makes A24 a cultural powerhouse is not that it released a film last spring in which an inter-dimensional assassin impales himself on an Auditor of the Month trophy, inexplicably shaped like a certain sex toy, although it most certainly did. It’s not that most cinephiles would immediately guess A24 as the company who put out that film, Everything Everywhere All at Once , even if its logo didn’t appear before the credits, although they probably would. No, what makes A24 a steady, sturdy phenomenon is that it started selling $60 designer candle replicas of that unlikely trophy just after the movie’s early-June digital release. advertisement advertisement Whether enough fans purchase the item—a collaboration with Brooklyn-based design studio, Joya —to justify its overhead cost is incidental. Everything Everywhere is now A24’s biggest hit ever , its $89 million box-office haul rendering the digital release a victory lap. The very existence … [Read more...] about I spent six weeks living in A24-world. Here’s what happened

This article first appeared in The Edge Malaysia Weekly, on June 20, 2022 - June 26, 2022. - A + A IF Bank Negara Malaysia’s eight-member monetary policy committee (MPC) raises the overnight policy rate (OPR) by 25 basis points (bps) at its next scheduled meeting on July 6, it will mark its first back-to-back increase since mid-2010, when interest rates were normalised following the recovery from the 2008 global financial crisis. It will not be the first central bank to do so. Compared with just a month ago, more economists now (at the time of writing) reckon that a 25bps hike will happen in July, but many still think a pause is possible in July ahead of the Hari Raya Aidiladha celebrations. In any case, at least one more rate increase (if not two) is expected to take place by the conclusion of the Sept 8 meeting to bring the OPR to at least 2.25% (if not 2.5%), consensus data show. “Our house has also shifted expectations for Bank Negara to frontload … [Read more...] about The State Of The Nation: What the Fed’s 75bps hike and near 4% terminal rate mean for the OPR

This article first appeared in The Edge Malaysia Weekly, on June 20, 2022 - June 26, 2022. - A + A LAST week, CTOS Digital Bhd made a bold move to raise its stake in RAM Holdings Bhd (RAM), in which it already owns a 19.225% stake. This is the third acquisition that CTOS has undertaken within a year. CTOS, which bought into RAM shortly after it was listed in July last year, launched a general offer last week to buy out the remaining shares that it does not own in the credit rating agency (CRA) soon after it got the green light from the Securities Commission Malaysia (SC) to own more than 51%. CTOS has so far spent the bulk of the RM173.8 million raised from a private placement in March on mergers and acquisitions (M&A). RAM will be the first local CRA to have a controlling shareholder upon the completion of the takeover offer. Dollars and cents aside, the takeover bid has prompted some quarters to question whether the independence of RAM’s rating … [Read more...] about Making sense of CTOS’ venture into RAM