Why no SGX query on Olam price surge?

LAST month, when the Monetary Authority of Singapore and Singapore Exchange (SGX) proposed measures to stre ngthen the local securities market that included new warning signals to be incorporated in SGX's questioning of listed firms over odd price movements, hopes were high that after years of largely ineffective - and sometimes farcical - querying, substance would finally trump form.

Unfortunately, after just one week of the new, it's beginning to look like more of the old. Queries and warnings were dispatched for penny stocks Giken Sakata and Ziwo Holdings, counters whose trading arguably has limited reach and impact, while nothing was said throughout Olam International's spectacular month-long rise that had everyone talking and that culminated in yesterday's announcement of a Temasek Holdings takeover.

It might be tempting to attribute regulatory inaction to a rise in the entire commodities sector. After all, there was speculation that Noble Group might sell its agriculture business for US$1 billion which, together with a concurrent rise in commodity prices, did lead analysts to say that the whole sector justified a re-rating. This, in fact, did occur.