KUCHING: Investing opportunities would still be abound in the equity market this year despite ongoing volatility and cautious sentiment, stemming from the civil strife situation in the middle-east and rising global inflationary fears.
Moreover, the local equity market should continue to attract attention in the short-to-medium term as valuations would not be excessive, according to Pacific Mutual Fund Bhd’s (Pacific Mutual) general manager of business development and marketing, Gary Gan.
“A lot of potentially good news are still in sight; such as the global commodities theme which benefits Malaysia, improving market depth and breadth, more corporate activities as well as continued sell-down of GLC (government-linked companies) stakes to improve liquidity,” he explained.
Moreover, Gan noted that local sectors such as plantations, utilities, financial services, construction as well as oil and gas would continue to receive favourable investor attention.
“For offshore however, it is either highly region or sector dependent, where tactical and active fund management moves could prove the key to performance. Here, we presently see good potential in selective global large-caps mainly from the US and continue to be overweight in selected Asian countries.
“These include financial services, commodities, infrastructure and consumer-related sectors,” he said, adding that investor value remained Pacific Mutual’s top priority in terms of equity trading.
An investment arm of the PacificMas Bhd and a member of regional banking brand OCBC Group, Pacific Mutual currently manages a total of 29 funds, which include 14 funds with foreign investment mandates and two wholesale funds. The company also manages private mandate funds under its asset management business.
To date, Pacific Mutual manages RM2.2 billion on behalf of its unit trust investors and private mandate clients. With the latest honour of being conferred the ‘Best Equity Fund House’ award at The Edge-Lipper Malaysia Fund Awards 2011 for the second consecutive year, Gan said the company would not rest on its laurels “just because we scooped up the awards”.
“The challenges do not end there,” he added.
“This speaks volumes of our fund management strength given the challenges in the past few years. The win is even more meaningful given that our global equity fund is fully managed in-house by Pacific Mutual,” he enthused.