SHAH ALAM: The year 2020 is expected to be great year for stock investing, driven by big catalysts like the US presidential election and Brexit developments, said newly appointed Inter-Pacific Asset Management Sdn Bhd (IPAM) head Datuk Dr Nazri Khan (DDNK) (pix).
“We expect the US-China trade war to cease fire and reduce tension, so this will be positive for the world. We’re optimistic that US and China are going to come up with certain trade deal in the near term before the Apec 2020. The US presidential election next year is normally the biggest catalyst to push markets higher,” he told a press conference at the Menang Saham Bersama DDNK seminar, which attracted 5,000 participants last Saturday.
He said the Dow Jones Industrial Average is at an all-time high of some 28,000 points, while the Nasdaq hit some 8,300 points, representing a great opportunity for Malaysians to consider investing in syariah US and Bursa stocks.
“Brexit (developments) is better than what we expected. We’re also seeing signs that commodities are recovering. The price of oil has started to go up along with the price of crude palm oil. It’s a great time for us to invest overseas, so we want to position IPAM as a significant player in the syariah global stock market,” said Nazri.
Locally, he said the year 2020 is symbolic where Malaysia is expected to be a developed and fully industrialised nation, where this will spur interest to invest in the global stock market.
He noted that Malaysia’s stock market valuation is the best since 2008, with the price-to-book ratio being the lowest in six years and price-to-earnings ratio being the lowest in multi-years. Foreign shareholding stood at some 22% today, much lower than the average over the last few years.
“Foreign shareholding is at multi-year low, this is also a great time for us to invest inside and outside Malaysia,” emphasised Nazri.
