US November employment numbers will be released tonight. Hurricane Sandy is likely to impact the data with consensus expecting non-farm payrolls to decline to 85k, down from 171k in October. Whatever the outcome, we think US equities should take it in stride. If the figure emerges better-than-expected, investors will cheer the resilience of the labour market. If it's worse-than-expected, the Hurricane is to blame, which is a 1-off. A weak jobs number will even stare down on US lawmakers to come an agreement to avert the fiscal cliff.

For the Singapore market, we talked about 3090 being the immediate resistance during December lull, with trading activity picking up again post Christmas on the assumption that the US fiscal cliff averted. Above 3090, 3200 is the first important technical resistance level that STI should gradually ascend to next year.

Research is issuing an Equity Explorer report on Cordlife Group, with a fair value of S$0.65. Cordlife Group is the larger of only two private cord blood banks in Singapore, and is among the top 3 in Hong Kong. The bulk of its revenue is recurring, as >50% of its customers are on an annual payment scheme. Increasing penetration rate and awareness of cord blood banking are expected to drive growth. Forward dividend yield is about 4%.

On the Singapore banks, we are heading into a low net interest margin (NIM), low loan growth environment into 2013. We believe NIM will still slip over the next 2-3 quarters before stabilising. Banks appear to be optimising their funding profile while tackling pressure with asset/loan yields. Loan growth should remain in the single-digit territory but upside is possible should macro drivers turn positive earlier than expected. OCBC remains a BUY and our preferred pick as we believe opportunities for cross-selling and hence fee income enhancement is greater from its Bank of Singapore and Great Eastern platforms. UOB remains a HOLD.

SembCorp Marine's PPL Shipyard has secured a pair of jackup orders worth US$434m from Mexican customer, Oro Negro. These units are to be delivered in 4Q13 and 1Q14. The short delivery schedule of 4-5 quarters could imply that these units will see earnings contribution from 1Q13. The order brings SMM's FY12 YTD order wins to S$11.0bn, vs. our full year assumption of S$11.4bn. Maintain Buy, TP: S$5.20.

RH Petrogas has entered into a Petroleum Production Sharing Contract (PSC) with Petronas for Block SK 331 onshore Sarawak. RH Petrogas will operate the Block with an 80% participating interest, with the remaining 20% owned by Petronas.

Tiger AirwaysAustralia chief Andrew David is quitting the budget carrier to join rival group Jetstar next year as chief executive officer of long-haul operations. In the newly created role, Mr David will oversee Jetstar Airways' wide-bodied fleet operations out of Australia and Singapore, including facilitating the integration of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner into Jetstar's fleet. Tiger said that Mr David will remain with the airline till a replacement is found.

Tee Yih Jia Food Manufacturing (TYJ Group) is investing $14.99m in Etika International Holdings by taking up new shares in the latter. Etika, whose activities include the manufacturing and distributing of sweetened condensed milk and evaporated milk, has entered into a subscription agreement with TYJ Group, and will allot and issue 75m new ordinary shares at $0.1998 each. This issue price is about 10% discount to Etika's last weighted average price.

Etika intends to use 50% of the net proceeds of $14.96m for capital expenditure and the remaining 50% for working capital.

The Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA) has fined SingTel, StarHub and M1 $10,000 each for falling short of 3G mobile phone service standards. These fines follow a joint survey done in September, which found that the nationwide outdoor service coverage for all three telcos fell below the Quality of Service (QoS) standard of at least 99%. The results of the survey published by IDA yesterday showed SingTelachieving a nationwide outdoor service coverage of 97.4%, followed by StarHub at 97.2% and M1 at 94.6%.

The rental gap between Grade A offices and Grade B office space islandwide has narrowed this year. Rents in older buildings at prime locations have held up as their occupancy levels remain stubbornly high. This is expected to change next year when tenants move into new developments and more space emerges in older buildings. Data from CBRE shows that the average monthly rental value in its Grade A basket is likely to end the year at about $9.51 psf, from $11 psf in Q4 last year. This reflects a full-year drop of 13.5%. On the other hand, the rent decline for Grade B offices will be much smaller, at about 2.3% this year. The average monthly rent is expected to dip from $7.34 psf in Q4 2011 to $7.17 psf this quarter. The resulting $2.34 psf rent difference between Grade A and Grade B offices currently is much smaller than a $3.66 psf gap a year ago.

Source: DBSV