Hot Stock Unisem falls 5% on profit taking after recent gains

by **Cals** Thu 10 Apr 2014, 13:41

Hot Stock Unisem falls 5% on profit taking after recent gains

Business & Markets 2014

Written by Jonathan Gan of theedgemalaysia.com

Thursday, 10 April 2014 11:32

KUALA LUMPUR (Apr 10): Unisem fell 5% in morning trades and was among the top losers on the stock exchange due to profit-taking after recent gains, according to an analyst.

At 11:04am today, the stock fell 6 sen or 5% to RM1.19 per share with 2.1 million shares traded. In the past few days, the stock had gained a total of 21% in price.

Paul Yap, analyst with TA Securities told theedgemalaysia.com in a phone interview that today’s decline was due to “trading” activities.

“The stock has gone up quite a bit yesterday and today’s decline was probably due to trading activities,” he said.

He added that shareholders are expecting Unisem to turnaround due to encouraging figures from the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) and the company’s turnaround plan.

SIA had reported that semiconductor sales for the Asia Pacific in February 2014 had risen 12% year-on-year.

Yap, though positive on the company’s turnaround plans, has maintained his “sell” recommendation on Unisem with a target price of RM1 per share.

“While we are positive on the group’s turnaround plans, this may be disrupted by government initiatives such as the rise in electricity tariffs,” he said in a research report two months ago.

Meanwhile, RHB Research maintains a “neutral” call on the stock with a fair value (FV) of 95 sen a share.

Chan Jit Hoong, analyst at RHB Research, said: “We maintain our neutral call on Unisem, with an unchanged 95 sen FV… We think business uncertainty prevails as the sector’s visibility remains short.”