Why did STATS ChipPAC wait to be queried?

UNDER the existing regulatory regime, the Singapore Exchange's (SGX) role is mainly to signal caution to the market when it deems this necessary. This is accomplished via various mechanisms, the most familiar being the standard query that is despatched to a company when there is unusual trading in that company's shares.

Of course, how unusual is unusual can be debated, but most of the time SGX's queries do appear justified, at least to neutral market observers because the movements are clearly odd and deserve explaining. The problem is that most of the time, companies simply shrug their shoulders and nothing more is heard.

Then again, every once in a while, we encounter a welcome departure from the norm - a reply where the company discloses information that could explain the sudden interest in its shares. One might then assume that the system is working well but, on the contrary, questions are still possible.