SMRT is down another 2% today closing at 1.70 (-o.o35). It was down 4% yesterday (Wednesday) closing at 1.735 (-0.075)
Well with Tuesday’s announcement that SMRT’s eight-year $900m programme to upgrade many infrastructural and systems components on the North-South and East-West lines would exceed what it had spent on repairs and maintenance in the past 10 years, and
— no details on how the cost will be co-shared with the Land Transport Authority (to be negotiated); and
— no details on many parts of the upgrading programme,
the sell-offs were to be expected.
What was surprising was that the stock was trading 1.81 on Tuesday As I mentioned here last week, I was surprised that the stock had not fallen after the most recent problems on the Circle Line. In fact the stock had gone up since 9 April , when OCBC called a buy at 1.74. This despite the ongoing inquiry had yet to allocate blame, and no announcements (then) of spending plans to maintain and upgrade the system so that it would be fit for purpose.
Mkt in SMRT shares was not efficient.
Is is possible that Temasek has a controlling stake in SMRT resulting in them pushing up market price by shorting the stock?