Cosco won contracts yet again...this time it's USD 1.34 billion

Quite tired after an outing, so this is going to be brief.

STI was up 30 pts in the morning, riding behind the back of Dow's performance last night. But all that changed towards the afternoon, where we see STI breaking 3700 before closing down 46 pts (1.25%) at 3649 with a volume of 2.4 billion. The usual culprits are the banking stocks, which probably contributed to the big selloff in STI. I think investors might be worried about what kind of profit they will post after the subprime debacle that happened in August. I think the worst hit should be DBS.

Just one announcement to share:

1. Cosco clinched shipbuilding contracts totaling US$1.34 billion to build 29 bulk carriers from several foreign ship owners. Could this news over-ride the recent sembcorp marine announcement of selling cosco shares to cover their FX losses? Hard to say. But all I can say is that this market darling keeps on getting contracts to build ship, with order book hitting multi billion already.

Europe all red, Dow not doing too well, presently at -145 pts down.