Stocks to watch: Plantations, Encorp, Oilcorp, Dreamgate (ext: Edge)

Stocks to watch include ENCORP BHD [ ], OILCORP BHD [ ], PLANTATION [ ]s, Dreamgate Corp Bhd and MISC BHD [ ].

Investors may continue to take profit in plantations in anticipation of lower demand for  soybean and palm oil in China would drag prices of the commodities down after policymakers there curbed  disbursement of new loans.

China is Malaysia's biggest palm oil importer, Malaysian palm oil for November 2009 delivery fell RM67 to  RM2303 a tonne yesterday.

New loans in China fell to 355.29 yuan in July this year, significantly lower than the  1.53 trillion yuan a month earlier.

Meanwhile, Datuk Seri Mohd Effendi Norwawi returned to the corporate scene with his appointment as executive chairman of Encorp Bhd on Sept 1.

In Oilcorp, its subsidiary Oilfab Sdn Bhd had clinched an oil and gas suppport services contract  from Carigali Hess Operating Company Sdn Bhd. The initial package of the job for Carigali Hess' brownfield  retrofit project is estimated at RM36 million.

In Dreamgate, it plans to undertake a private placement of new shares, amounting to 20%  of its  paid-up. The exercise aims to raise RM32 million to finance the company's capital  expenditure, and repay loans.

As for MISC, it finalised the en bloc sale of its " Anggerik Class" vessels comprising  four 29,900-deadweight tonne single-hull chemical tankers to three  privately-owned foreign companies for US$14 million.

The disposal of the vessels, built between 1989 and 1991, was in line with its asset-management  strategy to phase out single-hull units, and maintain a modern fleet of chemical tankers for the firm's  chemical business unit.

Shares of MISC fell one sen to RM8.71 on Sept 1, Oilcorp lost 1.5 sen to 37.5 sen, while Dreamgate was  unchanged at 18 sen.