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SCMP Reporter

IT wasn't just the Christmas decorations that were coming down yesterday.

  Many of the stocks which showed very strange upward movements in the last 30 minutes of Friday's trading - the last day of the year - came down again yesterday morning.

  On Saturday, we reported that about 10 medium-sized stocks had risen between five and 15 per cent in the last trading minutes of 1993 - a truly remarkable development not seen in any of the previous 249 trading days of the year.

  The most probable reason: that fund managers and pension funds wanted to make their performance look better for the year, so they bought like crazy with 30 minutes to go to push the prices up.

  Their performance is measured over the calendar year in some cases, so they were faced with a problem: many medium-sized stocks had not risen in line with the Hang Seng Index, meaning that although they'd had a great year, they hadn't kept up with the benchmark.

  Not all the stocks collapsed yesterday, because that would have meant the buyers making a loss on the transaction.

  But they're slipping down fast, even though the market is going up.

  The energy spent on ''adjusting'' prices like this could surely be better spent on other things, like avoiding the strategic mistakes which made it necessary in the first place.

   Bubbly Bay  FURTHER evidence of anti-social activity in Discovery Bay.

   Following the peeing-in-the-swimming-pool incidents, some dissident emptied detergent into the new fountain in the middle of the shopping centre at the weekend.

  Seven security guards immediately threw a cordon round it.

  ''Don't put my name in if you print this one,'' said our source in DB, who feared interrogation as a suspect. ''I've got an 18-month-old daughter.''   Next: road-racing in the DB golf carts.

   Fund aid  CHARITY time. Operation Santa Claus Mark II is being run by the stock exchange, which runs a charity called the Compensation Fund, which is supposed to look after the public when a broker goes bust.

  In between mouthfuls of champagne yesterday, the exchange's Paul Chow said a further $56 million had been bunged in last month, taking the total to $2.2 billion, and he expects a further $300 million to $400 million to go in the first six months of 1994.

  It's looked after by the Securities and Futures Commission.

   With the SFC's inside knowledge, it ought to be able to make a killing, but it's been rather boring and put the fund into ''safe investments''.

   More bubbly  INCIDENTALLY, the exchange people are getting rather blase about all the records.

   Rumour has it that after having photos taken with champagne yesterday, they poured it into an old Coke bottle with a screw top and put it back in the fridge, ready for 13,000 on Thursday.

  They've got to economise - exchange vice-chairman Chan Po-sum has predicted the index will hit 16,000 by year-end.

   High flyer  WHEN direct-mailing companies send their leaflets out across Asia, one thing they don't expect to get in return is a letter offering them prime-quality cannabis.

  ''There's too many of that particular mentioned plants were everywhere around my province, therefore if you could mind have any clients, would be very much appreciated and I will be their secret agent,'' was the offer one astonished direct mailer found when he opened his post yesterday morning.

  The reply came from a person with the initials JKK who uses a PO Box in a village in the Eastern Highlands province of Papua New Guinea.

  The direct-mailer chap reckoned JKK's name was probably among hundreds he got when he bought a list of subscribers to an American business magazine.

  The reply begins with a glowing description of the PNG countryside, then it starts talking about ''an unusual CONSUMER PRODUCT which is very dangerous and also illegal''.

  Apparently, top-quality marijuana grows wild in those lush hills. You can pick it - then mail it.

  If the direct-mailing people don't fancy a smoke, then JKK asks: ''Do you have any contact for MAFIA elements around the world?''   Dope by post: now that's a business with growth potential.

   After starting his career reading American business magazines, it should only be a few years before JKK is on the cover.

  Blind date  INTERESTED in a Japanese partner for your listed company? Here is a range of fees charged recently by Standard Chartered Securities:   Up-front, non-refundable payment of US$40,000, plus out-of-pocket expenses, plus a $100,000 success fee if a subcontract manufacturer, China distribution or joint venture deal is signed.

  If the Japanese company takes an equity stake, Standard Chartered get 2.5 per cent of the placing proceeds, plus a further $100,000 if any of the first three types of deal are concluded.

  This was the deal signed in May by Watary International, now being taken over by Malaysian gambling group Magnum Corp, and a review of the documentation revealed during the bid suggests Standard Chartered never managed to find such a partner.

  Incidentally, Watary looks like the classic example of a small company which has hit tough times exactly a year after listing.

   Profits have slumped and three of the four non-executive directors there when it was floated have left, as has executive director John Wismeyer.

  Also, someone received HK$1 million for ''premature termination of a consultancy service contract'', and there have been disputes over the fees paid to chairman Jack Lee.

  Standard Chartered Asia, which sponsored the original issue in November 1992, and had a 60 per cent role in its underwriting, returns to the battlefield once again, this time as independent financial adviser.

  Although they recommend that shareholders take the money from Magnum, they advise warrant-holders to vote against it.

   And no wonder - Magnum is offering one cent per warrant, and the closing price yesterday was 58 cents. Great deal, Magnum.



Star-struck stocks start stumbling