Sekawan Intipratama: Another Stock Fraud

In Wednesday, November 11, 2015, the Indonesia Stock Exchange (Bursa Efek Indonesia, BEI) suspended three brokerage houses from stock trading activities, namely Danareksa, Millenium Danatama, and Reliance, because the three were allegedly ‘not to performing an adequate procedure of internal controls’. BEI execute the suspension after receiving a report from the Financial Services Authority (Otoritas Jasa Keuangan, OJK), that the three were involved in ‘pump and dump’ activities related to Sekawan Intipratama (SIAP), a small-cap stock, which causes huge losses for many retail/institutional investors in the market.

IPO Prospect of Kino Indonesia

As one of the most prominent players in the industry of fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) in Indonesia, the IPO of Kino Indonesia (KINO) may be interesting, because we know that companies in the field of FMCG usually have a stable performance in the long term. And KINO itself has a good reputation as an innovative company that always create new consumer products, while its founder, Harry Sanusi, is well known as an inspiring entrepreneur who successfully founding and developing company from scratch. Okay, let’s get it on.

‘Invest to Seek Losses’

Last night before going to bed, I, as usual, browsed the internet on the phone, and I come to a website and forum about jobs and careers. When I go into a forum for jobs for entry level (fresh graduate or experienced 1 – 2 years), I noticed something: Everybody talks about, how much salary in company A? If l made it to be appointed as a permanent employee, how much my take home pay will be? What are the benefits beyond salary?

Asset Revaluation, and Its Influence on Company’s Fundamental

When the Government launched the package V of economic policy, one of the policies is tax incentives for companies that perform asset revaluation. Normally, the company must pay income tax of 10% for the increase in value of assets due to revaluation (the difference between the value of assets before and after the revaluation is considered as corporate earnings), but now the tax is 3 – 6% only. This policy is expected to encourage companies to revaluate its assets such as land, buildings, etc, where the value of these assets will usually rise, and eventually raise the value of net assets/equity of the company as a whole.

Bank BNI

Until the third quarter of 2015, Bank Negara Indonesia (BBNI) posted net earnings of Rp6.0 trillion, down 21.2% over the same period in the previous year, and its ROE was only 16.1%, also down compared to the previous period of 22.7%. Although it looks bad at first glance, but when the financial statements released on October 16, BBNI shares remained in its position, ie Rp5,100 per share, and now it is already at 5,250. And although the stock was once dropped until 4,000 when the Jakarta Composite Index (JCI) was under attack in last September 28, but it quickly rose back until reached 5,000 in just two weeks later. So maybe BBNI is not that bad?

Logo of Bank BNI with its slogan: Serve the country, the pride of the nation

Indonesia Economic Growth: Not as Bad as It Looks

On 5 November, the Indonesian Central Statistics Agency (Badan Pusat Statistik/BPS), released the rate of economic/GDP growth for the third quarter of 2015, which is 4.73% y-o-y. The rate, though still below the expectations of the Ministry of Finance and Bank Indonesia of 4.8 – 4.9%, but it’s better than the second quarter, which was only 4.67%. And if we take a look at the components of the economy itself, we will obtain some interesting facts.

Read the News Carefully!

On last August, the Jakarta Composite Index (JCI) dropped from 4,800’s on the beginning of the month, until reaching 4,484 on August, 19. The market was starting to panic at the time, but there’s another issue that more attractive to investors: The news that some public companies, in this case the state-owned banks, would buy back their shares in public. And I immediately received a lot of questions: Does this mean that I can buy the shares of Bank BRI (BBRI), Bank Mandiri (BMRI), or Bank BNI (BBNI)? Because if the company itself has decided to buy shares from the public, then the price must be already low enough, right?

Investor Protection? By Who?

About two months ago, a man with bicycle named Elianto Wijoyono stood in the middle of an intersection in City of Jogja to confront a Harley Davidson convoy, because the convoy was deliberately going to break through a red light. This action of ‘Bicycle vs. Harley’ gained a lot of comments on social media, and Elianto explained that he had planned his action, because he was concerned with the bad behavior of those motorists which often violate the traffic signals, causes trouble for other road users in the city of Yogyakarta.