Bursa Malaysia Berhad (Bursa Malaysia) today announced that a study conducted by Standard & Poor's unveiled that the exchange's initiated research scheme, CMDF-Bursa Research Scheme (CBRS), has shown significant impact on trading volumes. Studies conducted by Standard & Poor's between June 2005 to June 2006 have indicated 41% occurrences of increased trading volumes on average in the one-month period following the release of a research report on a given counter. The impact over a one year timeframe was even greater with 56 % occurrences of increased trading volume after release of the research reports. The study also ascertains, although inconclusively, an impact to price performance where the Strong Buy and Buy recommendations outperformed the KLCI.

The findings make a case for the effectiveness of the research scheme initiated by Bursa Malaysia two years ago which currently analyses 300 of the total 1,023 listed companies on the exchange. The research reports are made available free to the investing public from Bursa Malaysia's website (www.bursamalaysia.com).

The number of registered active users who accessed the website saw an increase of 200% from 5,256 in November 2006, to 15,367 as at 31st March 2007. This is in line with the market's upward trend in recent months.

Bursa Malaysia Chief Executive Officer Dato' Yusli Mohamed Yusoff said, "Equity research through analyst coverage does tend to have a positive impact on market activity and liquidity as it plays an important role in profiling the company apart from facilitating informed investing. When there is an access to reliable and independent research on stocks, investors do heed the salient points of the research to make informed and educated investment decisions as is evident by the findings revealed today."

He added that while CBRS reports benefit investors by providing them with impartial research on a company's potential, companies which are not currently engaged in this research scheme will lose out on the opportunity to increase their profile. "Many stocks on our exchange still do not have adequate research coverage. Potentially attractive companies may be limited in the equity investment they attract without adequate profiling and awareness.

"CBRS acts as a platform for us to highlight strong performing small-to-mid cap PLCs that are often ignored by institutional investors. The scheme is also successful in helping PLCs improve their learning curves in handling analysts and understanding the importance of profiling."

Bursa Malaysia will continue with the next stage of CBRS which aims to expand the pool of companies covered under the scheme. CBRS stage two will be introduced in July of this year.