Money flowing intotop three banks

Written by Joyce Goh
Tuesday, 06 October 2009 10:32

PETALING JAYA: Investors have been seizing opportunities to pick up banking stocks on the back of their weaker share prices last week. For the week ended Oct 2, investors purchased some RM38.96 million worth of stock in Bloomberg’s top 20 buying-on-weakness, a list of which the top three banks in the country emerged on the top three spots.

The second largest bank in terms of assets — CIMB Group Holdings Bhd — saw the highest inflow of funds in terms of value, following a 0.2% decline in its share price week-on-week. The decline caused a two sen drop in share price to RM11.14 but investors acquired RM6.66 million worth of the banking group’s stock.

Meanwhile, PUBLIC BANK BHD []’s share price fell eight sen in a week closing at RM10.18 last Friday. This change of 0.8% did not deter investors who acquired RM6.65 million worth of the stock in the country’s third largest bank.

The largest bank in the country — MALAYAN BANKING BHD [] (Maybank) — saw an inflow of RM5.71 million into the stock following its share price falling 0.6% week-on-week. The stock ended at RM6.64 last Friday, down four sen from a week before.

When asked on this, banking analysts believe this trend could be driven by two factors — investors’ rising confidence in the sector as well as the fact that the top three banks make up quite a bit of the FBM KUALA LUMPUR COMPOSITE INDEX [] weightage.

“The top three banks in Bursa make up 30% in terms of the weightage in FBMKLCI 30. Therefore, when there is share price weakness, there’ll be funds that will come in and support it. So it (money flowing into the stocks due to share price weakness) could be because of that,” Maybank Investment Bank Research’s senior analyst Wong Chew Hann told The Edge Financial Daily.

“It could also be because investors are expecting improved earnings to flow into banks as the economy slowly mends itself. On top of that, their asset quality is intact. Overall, our banks are on steady ground,” she said.

Wong said banks are expected to see loans growth this year, albeit a slower growth compared to last year. “We are looking at 6% loans growth for the sector. Last year was 12.9%. We also think that 2010 will not be as good as 2008... looking at single digits growth. Our house view is that the economy will rebound next year but we will not be seeing that 5% to 7% GDP growth,” she noted.

CIMB ended yesterday at its 52-week high of RM11.50, up 36 sen from its close last Friday while Maybank added one sen for the same period to RM6.65.

Public Bank ended Monday unchanged from its close last Friday of RM10.18.