Malaysian palm oil futures hovered around MYR 3,820 per ton, gaining for the seventh straight session while notching a five-week high amid strength in rival edible oil on the Chicago Board of Trade and a climb in crude oil prices as the Middle East crisis deepened, Tradingeconmics.com reported. Palm oil increased 0.39% year-on-year so far, while soybean has fallen 20%, which might have prevented palm oil to gain from El Nino-affected production. 

Airline PT Lion Mentari Airlines or Lion Air plans to hold an initial public offering (IPO) by targeting fresh funds of up to US$500 million, equivalent to Rp7.77 trillion. This is an interesting IPO to watch for many reasons. 

People in the stock market have recently talked about trading manipulation in some stocks and financing of political activities/politicians ahead of 2024 election cycles. It is not a novelty. We’ve seen in the corruption case of then Democratic Treasurer Nazaruddin about involvement of politicians in the initial public offering (IPO) of some state-owned companies.

Shares of petrochemical firm Chandra Asri Pacific (TPIA), co-owned by Prajogo Pangestu’s Barito Pacific (BRPT) and SCG Chemicals (Thailand), ended lower by 7.25% on Thursday (Jan 11) on ‘broad group’ correction following investigation into movement of shares linked to Prajogo by stock market authorities.

Manufacturer of bicycles and electric motorbikes for the United Bike brand, PT Terang Dunia Internusa Tbk (UNTD) has kicked off its initial public offering (IPO) for 1.66 billion shares, representing 25% of its total issued and paid-up capital, priced at Rp170-240, to raise total proceeds of maximum Rp400 billion.

Airlines industry recovered well last year as domestic traffic increased by more than 20% with monthly volume of around 5 million passengers. Still, this is way below pre-pandemic level. Expectation is high that a further recovery this year could help airlines to winding down the ceiling debts.

Telco firm Indosat (ISAT) or Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison is among the best performing stocks in the past 12 months, gaining 58% to make a market capitalization of Rp76.6 trillion, more than twice its equity (Rp32 trillion). The second largest player is substantially bigger than third largest XL Axiata (EXCL), which is now worth Rp28.2 trillion only. 

The Financial Services Authority (OJK) said 60 companies plan to launch the initial public offering (IPO), with total funds of Rp10.01 trillion, while total registered IPO on the pipeline amounts 85 firms in 2023 with indicative value of Rp28.68 trillion. The Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX) also said that 29 companies are to carry out an IPO as of January 5, 2024, of which 19 companies have medium-scale assets.

One more nickel player in the market. Shares of nickel miner Adhi Kartiko Pratama (NICE) will be listed and traded today (January 9) at price of Rp438 per share. Given downfall of nickel prices in the past few months, the stock is interesting to watch.