Venture steady amid market fall

The Singapore market gave up a significant part of Thursday's gain yesterday.

The Straits Times Index, which had risen 31.85 points on Thursday, fell 12.95 points yesterday, closing at 1,922.75. Rising oil prices was a dampener across the market.

Big losers included CapitaLand (down 3.9 percent), City Development (down 3.9 percent), Singapore Press Holdings (down 3.5 percent) and Singapore Airlines (down 2.7 percent).

One stock that managed to hold on to Thursday's gain was Venture Corporation. It closed unchanged for the day.

Venture yesterday reported that its second quarter earnings was S$64 million, 10 percent above the corresponding period last year. However, revenues fell nine percent to $684 million.

The one-time tech darling has seen a slowdown in its earnings for the past two quarters. Compared to average annual growth rates of over 30 percent in the past few years, its growth rates in the last two quarters have only been around 10 percent.

This has resulted in its share price badly underperforming the market -- the stock, which closed at S$16.60 yesterday, is down 17 percent so far this year, compared to a rise of 9 percent in the Straits Times Index.

However, Wong Ngit Liong, Venture's chairman and CEO, expects business activity to pick up significantly in the second half.

"Overall we expect the second half to be a lot stronger, based on the inputs we have, based on the pipeline activities, based on the orders that we see streaming into the company. This is our expectation, that it is going to be stronger than the first half of 2004," Wong said.

Venture currently trades at a P/E ratio of 17, which is at the lower end of its historical range.