Thursday, 17 October 2013

How will the stockmarket react to the coming Budget?



Into the last trading week before the presentation of the Malaysian Budget on 25 October, the question that begs an answer is whether I should invest more into the capital markets (shares and bonds), stay with my current portfolio or reduce my exposure.

Let’s start with where we are, with a chart of the FBM Kuala Lumpur Composite Index below. The market has done fairly well gaining by 9% in the last 12 months and 25% over the last 2 years. However, in comparison to other markets, we have generally underperformed.

In terms of valuations, the market is trading at approximately 16.84 times prospective PER with a 3.12% dividend yield. It is reasonable and not demanding in comparison to its historical data.


*Source: Bloomberg Daily Index Prices

 
*Source: Bloomberg Monthly Index Prices [Base = 100 @ 14 Oct 2011; Last date = 14 Oct 2013]


Predicting what the stockmarket will do is voodoo science. Indeed, one of the three winners for this year’s Nobel Prize in Economics, Eugene Fama, is best known as the father of the Efficient Market Hypothesis. The belief that all information are already fully incorporated into the stock price.

Nevertheless, for us practitioners, we live on the belief that there is a price discovery process and markets do become irrational. This line of thought is in tune with the other winner of this year’s Nobel Prize in Economics, Robert Shiller.

Even Fama provides for the possibility of making a buck out of the stockmarket, noting local risk factors as a cause of differential portfolio returns.

Ultimately, your investment choices are uniquely yours. It is about the risk you are willing and able to take. Putting all your money into a bet on whether the market will go up or down will be truly unwise.

This week in the Trade Wise column of The Edge, I share my views on the immediate outlook for the Malaysian stockmarket. It reflects my choices and my risk and reward trade-offs. Not necessarily yours.

13 comments:

  1. I invest on stocks base on its own future prospect for the next 5years. Many times, have bought counters at or near record highs.
    Keep winners &cut losers.
    This momentum strategy works well during bullish cycles.
    In flat or down cycles, you need lots of luck or Warren Buffet style of investing.

    Long-term share investors, generally care little about market indexes level or annual government budgets.

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  2. Well since I don't play stocks what I think will happen is : property counter/ shares goes down due to gst and other restrictions . Lousy co in mesdaq or IT will goes up : benefit from software for gst implementation. Construction shares and umno related will go up also .. Easy theory . tobacco , alcohol co, consumer stocks all go down : higher tax reduced subsidy

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  3. low capitalized and cornered shares can be easily push up .

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    1. Push up n down is for cowboys...... this group mostly mostly appear in KLSE. If u want to be respected, make money via real skills; not joining this group. The cost is high....& u dont sleep well at night.

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    2. Have to push up to create liquidity & ease of selling shares.once the share is up it creates value .

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    3. The real intrinsic value of the shares determined by the business health, not created by illusion of the cowboys games. Demand will more supply when real investors see this value. Those who think they can control the small cap Co only able to mislead the naive followers.

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  4. Mr Tong, we would like to invite you to join our Monozukuri Mission to engage the founder's lineage of TPS, Mr. Taiichi Ohno in Toyota, Nagoya, Japan. The answer to break the middle income trap would be found there. Pls write to enquiry@hfl1som.com to know more on how Toyota DNA looks like from the inside out. Many thanks.

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  5. Mr. Tong,

    pls carry on with your article in the edge weekely. the more the better.
    since you are an ex-banker and property guy, maybe you should take over TA Enterprise by making a general offer to shareholders.
    you will have 2 business that is stock broking and TA Global. Then you can sell the stock broking business and kept TA Gobal. Plenty of good assets inside TA global. you will be a better value creator compare to tony tiah

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  6. Hi, I fully agreed with you that betting stocks is gambling, investing & trading involved a lot of research n practicing. Be frank, every investors n traders must know what they want, time frame & most important how to achieve it. Sadly, most are not n just depend on theh so so called gurus at WSJ, FT, or even the edge(sorry if offense u). I personally believe every successful traders, investors, speculators or whatever terms; have their own uniuqe traits, characters, principles, belief and behavior. I only only respect those who are the real player n proof that they can make money regardless the market direction; (these include those low profiles hedge fund manager namely Paul Tudor Jones, James Simons, Steven Cohen ) , Personally, I have quite numbers of portfolio in hand, I always tell my traders, Making money in market is important, but more important is when u have drawn down, u can bring in back n beat the benchmark index easily, the most important is u must control your emotion n know what u r doing. Investing is not betting. If u can't make more then double digits p.a. (for those AUM less then 1 billion USD, Stay away from this games.

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  7. Budget with no new RPGT measures, will be good as KL is the best spot to invest in real estate in South East Asia. Be it the cheapest, offerings and the best legal framework, investment policy, financing, infrastructures etc for regional property investors. Without doubt much better than Singapore. The other options the like of Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, Cambodia etc is lawless. Bearing in mind property could be the trigger point for any meltdown. It would be interesting if an analyst is to trace the 'in kind' capital inflow not being captured in the accounts. Citing Mah Sing Jv with Everbright, hereby the Chinese GLC will undertake to construct ICON city utilizing all the building materials from China. Thus you will notice the balance sheet of Mah Sing is good as there is no or minimal borrowing. Understand there are few such mega deals such Da Men, I-City etc in town. Hence whatever craps the foreign analysts may say about our economy but our underground economy is next to Italy in term of size.

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    Replies
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