The Post Election Winners (ext.OSK)

Although the market met expectations and rallied to an all-time high closing in March, it may be dogged by some uncertainties and potentially retrace in April. This, however, has not deterred investors from scouring the market for Election-related BUYs. Rather than highlighting stocks that might potentially rally for a short spurt before the election, we unveil our Election BUY calls on stocks that should rally closer to and past the polls. We believe that the advance in AirAsia, UEM Land, Genting, MMC, RHB Cap, CIMB, Maybank, UMW and Sime Darby shares may have been capped by concerns that they may falter if the election outcome is unfavourable for the incumbent. For April though, given the uncertainty, we favour situational stocks with specific catalysts during the month.

Still, uncertainty in April calls for specific situational stocks as monthly Top Buys. While we see the Election-related BUYs paying off handsomely over the next 7 months, our outlook for April is less certain in view of the potential of a retracement. Our Top Buys are therefore stocks with a specific catalyst during the month, namely TNB, which should report improved results this month, MMC with the upcoming listing of subsidiary Gas Malaysia, Kencana with its upcoming merger with SapuraCrest, Dialog which has been a noteworthy laggard and Padini, for which a wider coverage and better liquidity should boost sentiment.