Industry Experts Share Investment Insights

Industry Experts Share Investment Insights
At 'What & Where to Invest In 2010' Seminar



Fundsupermart held its annual “What & Where to Invest In 2010 seminar” to a capacity crowd of 1,900 at Suntec City Convention Centre on 28 January 2010.

Investment experts from Prudential Asset Management (Singapore) Limited, Western Asset Management Company Pte Ltd (an affiliate of Legg Mason Inc.), ING Investment Asia Pacific (Hong Kong) Limited, Henderson Global Investors (Singapore) Limited, BNP Paribas Investment Partners and Fundsupermart.com, spoke on a broad range of topics, ranging from the macroeconomic outlook for the year, the fixed income markets, global emerging markets, Asia property markets, and Brazil, the current darling of Latin America.

Robert Rountree, Head of Investment Marketing at Prudential Asset Management (Singapore) Limited, delivered a lively presentation on the current state of the global economy, and his assessment of the current economic recovery and equity markets. “Equities are not in bubble territory, but it depends on the measure and the profit forecasts,” noted Robert. He added that emerging Asia values are at a 10-year high but fair at 20-year. “How Asia responds to slower US growth and a US tightening, will be critical.” Among the Asia-Pacific markets, Prudential Asset Management is overweight China and India, while remaining neutral on Indonesia, Korea and Australia, for 2010.

Peter S. Sengelmann, Fixed Income Specialist at Western Asset Management Company Pte Ltd, spoke on why Western Asset Management believes that opportunities still exist in bonds. From a portfolio perspective, Western Asset Management holds the view that despite the sharp rally in risk assets, corporate bonds still offer value. In terms of sub-sector allocation, banks are benefitting from extraordinary liquidity provision, improved capital adequacy and financial ratios. On currencies, Western Asset Management expects commodities currencies to do well, and Asia ex-Japan currencies to outperform the USD.

Betty Pestiaux, Product Portfolio Specialist at ING Investment Asia Pacific (Hong Kong) Limited, shared her views on why both emerging markets debt and equity remain as the top 3 preferred asset classes at ING Investment Management (INGIM). “Emerging markets have superior underlying fundamentals, less debt (in percentage of GDP), higher savings rate (in percentage of GDP), and better current account balance, versus the developed markets.” INGIM is more positive on the markets of Hungary, Poland, Russia, Turkey, Brazil, Indonesia and China, while remaining cautious on Malaysia, Israel, India, Mexico, Thailand and Taiwan.

Simon Godfrey, Investment Specialist (Emerging Markets) at Fortis Investments (part of BNP Paribas Investment Partners Asia Limited), spoke specifically on the growth drivers and investment themes for Brazil, undoubtedly the hottest economy in Latin America currently. “Huge potential demand will support [Brazil’s] economic growth. The investment cycle has already started and will expand output capacity and current account deficit for over the next few years. Oil exploration, the World Cup and the Olympic Games will direct the focus to investment and infrastructure,” noted Simon during his presentation. Underlining the importance of the continued robust expansion of the Chinese economy to Brazil’s growth prospects, Godfrey cited the derailing of the Chinese story and the deterioration in global growth as the main risks to the Brazilian economy.

Sharing his insights on the outlook for the Asian property markets was Frankie Lee, Head of Property Equities – Asia, at Henderson Global Investors (Singapore) Limited. “The Grade-A office rent markets in Singapore, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Australia and Tokyo underwent sharp cyclical corrections in 2008, and there have been clear signs of recovery lately. [On the other hand], the mass residential market (in these cities) is experiencing secular growth,” commented Frankie.

Rounding off the series of presentations was Wong Sui Jau, General Manager of Fundsupermart Singapore, who shared why there is cause for optimism for 2010. “We think 2010 will be a good year because (1) the recession in 2009 formed a low base from which it would be easy to improve from in 2010, especially with the global economy on the mend; (2) earnings growth are expected to be high this year even while valuations remain reasonable; (3) concerns such as inflation, the weak USD, the possibility of a double-dip recession have been raised, and the market is aware of these potential pitfalls.”

To thank our investors for their support, we are having a post seminar funds promotion from 29 January 2010 to 1 March 2010.