STOCKS NEWS ASEAN-Investment led growth to drive markets - Morgan Stanley

ASEAN markets have the potential to deliver investment driven growth that will likely be the key medium term driver, with Thailand continuing to have the high visibility of a 12-18 months investment cycle, said Morgan Stanley. Indonesia has the best visibility on a structural investment cycle and is likely to be a key beneficiary of improving global growth environment, the broker said in its report, ASEAN Equity Strategy, dated March 15. Morgan Stanley's Global Economics team expects GDP growth to have bottomed out and the global economy to enter 'Daylight' from 'Twilight' with around 4 percent global GDP growth in the second half of 2013 and in 2014. "We believe that a combination of oligopolistic growth companies and investment led growth will continue to drive Indonesian and Thai markets," it said. Indonesia is its most preferred ASEAN 3 market, followed by Thailand and Singapore, respectively. "We are playing a potential recovery in global growth by being 'overweight' energy and materials in Thailand and 'overweight' transportation sector in Singapore," it said. Morgan Stanley's preferred stocks to play the potential recovery in global growth in the second half of 2013 are PTT Pcl , PTT Global Chemical Pcl, IRPC Pcl and Singapore Airlines Ltd. It said it continued to like the domestic story in Indonesia and is hence 'overweight' on financials and telecoms such as PT Bank Mandiri Persero Tbk and PT Indosat Tbk. 1433 (0733 GMT) (Reporting by Viparat Jantraprap in Bangkok; Editing by Anupama Dwivedi) ************************************************************ 14:15 STOCKS NEWS ASEAN-Malaysia continues to attract inflows Foreign investors continued to favour Malaysian stocks last week as appetite for the country's risk assets remained strong with the market falling to an attractive level after pricing in the national elections to be held mid-year. Malaysia's bourse took in $228 million in net foreign purchases in the week ended March 15, more than any of its Southeast Asian rivals, followed by a $361 million offshore inflow in the previous week, stock exchange data showed. "Foreigners think the current government would stay in power. So they are not so concerned," said Ang Kok Heng, who helps manage some $422 million as chief investment officer at Kuala Lumpur-based Phillip Capital Management Sdn Bhd. "But locals are more worried because they think there is a chance Barisan (the ruling party) may lose." Another Kuala Lumpur-based analyst said foreigners have been buying only heavyweights such as Telekom Malaysia Bhd TLMM.KL and Tenaga Nasional Bhd TENA.KL, and not small caps. Kuala Lumpur has enjoyed a net $2.06 billion in inflows so far this year, the highest in the Southeast Asian region, followed by Indonesia's $1.97 billion. Kuala Lumpur's Composite Index .KLSE has fallen 4 percent so far in 2013, the region's worst performer. The market's 14-day relative strength index has fallen to a near over-sold level from an overbought region early this year, Thomson Reuters data showed. Domestic investors were net sellers of the market due to caution ahead of the general election. Thailand .SETI witnessed $208 million inflow, while Indonesia .JKSE suffered a $100 million outflow last week. Year-to-date inflows into Indonesian and Vietnamese .VNI markets have already exceeded last year's total foreign inflows, Thomson Reuters data showed. Net foreign buying (or selling, in brackets) (Millions of US dollars) 1 week MTD* FEB YTD* 2012 Malaysia .KLSE 228 651 585 2,056 n/a Thailand .SETI 208 387 (583) 303 2,506 Indonesia .JKSE (100) 215 1,161 1,971 1,639 Philippines .PSI (0.27) 251 146 1,221 2,693 Vietnam .VNI 13 35 (4) 152 151 * MTD = month to date, YTD = year to date Source - Thomson Reuters, stock exchanges Singapore data is not available (Reporting by Shihar Aneez; Additional reporting by Anuradha Raghu in Kuala Lumpur; Editing by Jijo Jacob)