Daily Strategy: SCBS Expects BDMS-BH to Benefit from Reopening, Retails still Laggard

Major stock markets in Asia traded in a mixed session on Monday, as China retail sales beat expectations in October with 4.9% growth, while Japan announced a plummet in third quarter GDP by 3.0%.

 

SET Index opened at 1,637.29 points, increased 3.35 points or 0.20%.

As of 10:15 local time in Thailand, Nikkei rose 0.49%, SSEC fell 0.22%, Hang Seng Index dropped 0.17%, ASX 200 increased 0.39% and IDX Composite slipped 0.26%.

 

Earlier this morning, the Chinese National Bureau of Statistics reported that China’s retail sales in October grew by 4.9% YoY, beating expectations of 3.5%. Meanwhile, industrial production expanded 3.5% YoY, beating expectations of 3% growth.

The data showed that from January to October, fixed asset investment grew by 6.1% from the first 10 months in 2020.

Meanwhile, Japan’s economy is falling faster than anticipated with a 3.0% contraction in the third quarter, compared to a 0.8% as one of the largest economies in Asia battled with the Covid-19 situation in the quarter that pressured business spending and consumption.

Compared to the previous quarter, Japan’s GDP fell 0.8%, which was higher than what economists had forecast for a 0.2% drop.

Thailand‘s economy returned to contraction in the third quarter of 2021 by 0.3% compared to the same period of last year as the country battled with the new wave of Covid-19 pandemic that led to a lockdown. Still, the contraction was better than the expectation of 0.8% by Reuters poll.

 

Mr. Ekpawin Suntarapichard, investment strategist of the Siam Commercial Bank Securities (SCBS), through “Kaohoon Jor Talad Program” on November 15, 2021, expected the Thai stock market to challenge the 1,650 resistance level this week after a narrow movement last week.

The Thai GDP in the third quarter of 2021 dropped 0.3% YoY, but was better than the expectation of 0.8% contraction. Mr. Suntarapichard expected 4Q21 to recover as well as performance of SET-listed companies, seeing the negativity has bottomed out in the previous quarter.

For investment strategy, Mr. Suntarapichard recommended retail stocks, seeing the prices are still laggarded and expected average sales to outperform in 4Q21, focusing on HMPRO and CRC. Meanwhile, the strategist recommended KBANK for the banking sector as the current price is still opened for entry while the sector, even though is on an uptrend, is still trading equal to the book value from its usual 1.2x-1.3x.

As for the hospital stocks, Mr. Suntarapichard recommended BDMS and BH, expecting to benefit from the reopening and medical tourism, while BCH and CHG could slow down in the short term after realizing the revenue from Covid-19 services and the situation is improvin