In a nutshell, we believe the market will likely to be volatile in view of the more aggressive rate hike decision in the US. Besides, policy and direction of the Trump’s presidency could spark more uncertainties. The underlying market conditions seem mixed and the relatively low excess liquidity in the domestic banking system remains a concern. Coupled with the underlying weak tone in ringgit, we have yet to see a strong reversal in foreign fund flows. The good news, however, could be the emergence of a General Election theme play, which could uphold the local equity market’s investment sentiment. Fundamentally, our FY16E/FY17E earnings growth estimates are pegged at -4.0%/6.0%. As such, we reckon that 2017 could be another range-bound year with a year-end index target of 1,732, implying c.6% upside from here. For stock picks, apart from capitalising on visible thematic plays, we have also employed a two-prong approach – (i) Buy defensiveness/resiliency and (ii) Bottom-Fish laggards or underperformed/heavily sold down stocks. Based on this strategy, we select (i) HEIM (OP, TP: RM18.48), (ii) PMETAL (OP, TP: RM2.00), (iii) PWROOT (TB, TP: RM2.56), (iv) SCGM (OP, TP: RM4.05), (v) SLP (OP, TP: RM3.18), (vi) TOPGLOV (OP, TP: RM5.92), (vii) AEONCR (OP, TP: RM17.76), (viii) KLCC (MP, TP: RM7.84), (ix) PAVREIT (OP, TP: RM1.89), (x) PRTASCO (TB, TP: RM1.52), (xi) YINSON (OP, TP: RM3.79), (xii) OCK (OP, TP: RM0.96), (xiii) OLDTOWN (OP, TP: RM2.11), (xiv) SKPETRO (OP, TP: RM1.88) and (xv) TM (OP, TP: RM6.98). |
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