KUALA LUMPUR (Dec 23): JCY International Bhd shares rose on Friday after OSK Investment Research raised its recommendation on JCY Trading Buy from Sell.

At 9.35am, JCY added half a sen'' to 91.5 sen with 844,400 shares traded.

OSK Research on Thursday upgraded the TECHNOLOGY [] sector to Neutral and said that better HDD pricing could help mitigate losses from the Thailand flood.

It said that against the backdrop of the massive works in progress to restore operations following Thailand's crippling floods, the worst could well be over.

The research said it had become less bearish on the hard-hit HDD components sector given the ongoing accelerated restoration as well as potential price hike over the immediate term, which could mitigate the earnings pressure from forgone capacity in the short term.

'As for JCY, we are raising our earnings forecast by more than 100% as their equipment was unscathed. Valuation switched from 0.9x PBV to 8x FY12 PER.

'Call upgraded to Trading Buy with Fair Value of RM1.30. Understand that there are rumours of a strong price push over the next 1 month,' it said.