RHB Group Research analyst Shekhar Jaiswal remains optimistic about the Singapore equity market, noting that it offers opportunities to accumulate stocks that offer “operating leverage to the ongoing economic reopening and better earnings visibility”.
The change in measures includes up to five fully vaccinated people from the same household now allowed to dine together in restaurants (excluding hawker centres and coffee shops), the launch of a vaccinated travel lane (VTL) between Singapore and Malaysia as well as with Finland and Sweden; and differentiated measures on medical bills between those vaccinated against Covid-19 and those who are not.
See: Singapore's equity market looks optimistic, despite risks: RHB
More measures may also be potentially eased in the near future, as the authorities pilot the resumption of more activities for those who are fully vaccinated.
The way Jaiswal sees it, the recent easing of restrictions in some Covid-19 measures will be positive for the banking, consumer, healthcare, industrial, telecommunications and transport sectors.
“Despite risks of an early interest rate hike, we continue to favour exposure to REITs, with industrial REITs as the preferred pick,” he adds.
See also: RHB initiates coverage on CSE Global with ‘buy’ call with TP of 58 cents.
RHB is “overweight” on banking, industrials, real estate S-REITs and transportation sectors, while the brokerage has a “neutral” rating on all other sectors.
Jaisal’s sector picks are Food Empire Holdings, Genting Singapore and Thai Beverage for the consumer sector, OCBC and UOB for financials, Wilmar for food products, Raffles Medical for Healthcare, as well as HRnet Group, Marc Polo Marine and ST Engineering for industrials.
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See also: Suntec REIT biggest beneficiary from MAS’s ‘looser’ leverage, ICR rules: OCBC
For the manufacturing sector, he prefers Frencken, Fu Yu Corp, and Venture Corp, while for real estate, he picks City Developments. His top picks also include Ascendas REIT, ESR-REIT, and Prime US REIT for REITs, Singapore Telecommunications for telecommunications, and China Aviation Oil and ComfortDelGro for transportation.
Photo: Bloomberg
