Hot Stock Public Bank rise on higher profit, revenue

by **Cals** Tue 21 Apr 2015, 20:47

Hot Stock
Public Bank rise on higher profit, revenue

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By Gho Chee Yuan / theedgemarkets.com | April 21, 2015 : 10:38 AM MYT

KUALA LUMPUR (Apr 21): [size=14]Public Bank Bhd ([You must be registered and logged in to see this image.] Financial Dashboard) advanced as much as 20 sen or 1% after group reported higher first quarter profit and revenue from a year earlier.

Public Bank (fundamental:2.8; valuation: 1.5) rose to its highest so far today at RM19.80 after it said net profit rose to RM1.17 billion in the first quarter ended Mar 31, 2015 (1QFY15) from RM1.02 billion. Revenue was higher at RM4.6 billion compared to RM3.95 billion.

The stock had later pared gains. At 9.42am, the stock was traded at RM19.68 with 177,600 units transacted. At 10:10am, the shares changed hands at RM19.64.

In a note to clients today, Kenanga Investment Bank Bhd maintained its "market perform" rating on Public Bank shares with an unchanged target price (TP) of RM19.30.

Kenanga also maintained its earnings forecast for Public Bank for FY15 and FY16.

Meanwhile, TA Securities Holdings Bhd said in a note it downgraded Public Bank shares to "sell" from "hold" with an unchanged TP of RM20.30.

TA made no changes to its Public Bank's earnings forecast.

"However, given that share price has risen since our upgrade report dated Jan 28, the upside is now limited to less than 10%. With that, we downgraded the stock from "hold" to "sell"," TA said,

(Note: The Edge Research's fundamental score reflects a company's profitability and balance sheet strength, calculated based on historical numbers. The valuation score determines if a stock is attractively valued or not, also based on historical numbers. A score of 3 suggests strong fundamentals and attractive valuations.)
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