With the rise of inflation and higher interest rates, it presents a challenge to investors all over the world. It is also challenging to find good investments these days.
Smart Investor spoke to Datuk Wira Ismitz Matthew De Alwis, Executive Director & Chief Executive Officer, Kenanga Investors Berhad to find out more about the challenging global equity markets as well as his thoughts on alternative investments.
Navigating The Challenging Global Equity Markets
Smart Investor: What are the challenges that you and the investors are currently facing, now that we are witnessing the rise of inflation and higher interest rates?
Datuk Wira Ismitz Matthew De Alwis: Global equity markets have been particularly challenging in recent times, due to rising inflation, monetary tightening and geopolitical conflicts. As the post pandemic re-opening has progressed across the globe in 2022, many have felt the effects of higher infl ation due to the clash between a rebound in demand and supply shortages.
The global equity market was further weakened by the Russia-Ukraine geopolitical conflict. In response, central banks have tightened monetary policy in an effort to control the rise in inflation. These factors have negatively affected asset prices, as liquidity is drained from the system and the cost of capital increases.
Globally, companies have been affected by high inflation rates through both rising cost and lower demand as consumers scale back on discretionary spending. Local companies were also impacted, especially those companies with export-based revenue and those that have imported raw materials. Additionally, rising risk aversion also dampens fund flows and general investor sentiment.
Generally, we have adopted a defensive portfolio stance in light of the challenging global equity market, with over-weights on sectors that have pricing power, resilient demand and will also benefit from higher interest rates. These include selected companies in the financials, consumer and industrials weakness as an opportunity to deploy capital to companies where long-term fundamentals still remain solid such as the technology sector.
SI: Is it still a good time to invest in stocks or unit trusts, despite the challenging global equity market? How to select the good ones to invest for long term?
IMDA: Unit trust funds remain an excellent choice of investment as it has a low entry point, provides diversification at a reasonable cost, and is usually expertly managed by licensed professionals. There is also an abundance of choice when it comes to unit trusts as investors can select their pick based on their risk tolerance and investment objectives.
More recently, due to the surge in interest towards impact investing, investors have also begun to divert their attention towards businesses that aim to generate specific beneficial social or environmental effects in addition to just financial gains.
Aside from that, factors such as fund strategy, asset allocation, and sector allocation will also come into play during the investment decision process. Ultimately, investors should perform their own due diligence on all the variables laid out in front of them, and make an informed decision to pick the investment tool that would best suit their own personal objectives.
SI: Why would anyone be interested to invest in alternative investment such as P2P, ECF and crypto?
IMDA: Alternative investments can offer investors several traits that are not commonly found in traditional investments such as equities or bonds. These typically include one or more of the following attributes: long term, high risk, or illiquid investments that are associated with higher returns; low correlation with traditional assets to deliver diversification benefits; inflation-hedging benefits; and scalability.
Alternatives will be able to encompass a wide range of asset classes, including private equity real estate and private equity infrastructure funds, secondary funds, and private debt funds. Just like the traditional counterparts, alternative investments also differ from each other from its volatility, risk, and returns.
Cryptocurrency is the current trending topic no matter the age group from millennials to experienced investors. It is especially popular due to its nature (low fees, unaffected by fluctuating interest rates and a global market place without geographical restrictions) and the rise of popular tech culture in the media. Its rising popularity can also be attributed to its innovative blockchain technology, which promotes extreme security for its users and offers unrivalled transparency in the case of its fully auditable and accurate ledger of transactions.
On the other hand, it is also widely famous for its outrageous volatility, as seen in the recent meltdown of TerraUSD (one of the world’s largest stable coins) which is seen as the less volatile variant of cryptocurrencies**.
My most repeated advice to anyone wanting to dive into any forms of investment is to always conduct their own research regardless of experience level, as it is their own money and their sole responsibility to know where it is being invested into. Tune out the noise in the market and focus on reputable news to formulate your own conclusions. Consistent self-education is one of the most powerful tools anyone can practice as it enables us to not solely rely on third-party information which may or may not provide us with a false sense of the market.
**Source: https://www.wsj.com/articles/terrausd-crash-led-to-vanishedsavings-shattered-dreams-11653649201
SI: What does Kenanga Investors have to offer in terms of alternative investments? Is this something that the company has yet to explore?
IMDA: As the alternative investments pioneer within the Malaysian market, we are able to offer sophisticated and diversified investment instruments for the modern-day investor. From the conservative to the more dynamic investor profile, our alternative instruments are an additional source of uncorrelated returns, the key to success being a delicate balance of the right manager and the right strategy in line with one’s investment profile.
For Kenanga Investors’ Alternative Investments, we do look at various opportunities and asset classes. E.g. private equity (direct investments into private companies), wholesale funds (launch of Kenanga Sustainability Series, with the most recent being the Kenanga Sustainability Series: High Yield Bond Fund, the Kenanga Global Unicorn Series and the Kenanga Global Multi Asset Fund) and asset-backed high-yielding notes.
From investment advice to bespoke alternative investment portfolio management, our expertise lies in alternative strategies with varying degrees of liquidity to complement or bolster an investor’s existing portfolio.
We are confident that our growing presence within the alternative space has added depth to the products and services offered to our investors, enabling both retail and institutional investors to capture market opportunities in a volatile environment.
SI: With so many legitimate investment schemes out there, why do you think people still fall for scams?
IMDA: Some people still fall for financial or investment scams regardless of the amount of legitimate investment schemes due to one crucial factor, lack of patience. They are often discouraged by the slow process of capital gains or accumulation of returns in legitimate investment schemes.
Therefore, when a get-rich-quick scheme presents itself, they often fall to temptation and suffer high amounts of losses to their valuable savings. These scams often exploit the human weakness of instant gratification where they promise quick and higher returns.
SI: What are some of your plans in the near future?
IMDA: Since 2021, we have steadily been releasing a series of funds that follows Kenanga Investors’ sustainable and socially-responsible investing roadmap such as the Kenanga Waqf Al-Ihsan Fund and our suite of multiasset products, Kenanga Sustainability Series. The Series was conceptualised in wake of the ever-growing demand for ESG adoption among companies by investors, especially post pandemic.
We are excited for the future as we will be introducing fresh new funds in the KSS line-up which will further provide our investors with a more robust portfolio stemming from ESG analytics which captures new opportunities aside from standard qualitative and quantitative metrics. In respect of this, we are also looking to enhance our Shariah-compliant investment experience by adding value-added products and services to stimulate the local impact investing landscape.
Alongside our intention to have more ESG products in our lineup, we will also be looking at converting existing selected funds (both global and domestic) to meet the threshold required to qualify as ESG relevant.
With multiple successful product launches, a dedicated team of professionals in deal sourcing and idea generation, and an intricate network of relationships with expert alternative partners all over the world, we have achieved what we set out to do, bridging the gap between retail investors and more sophisticated forms of products which were previously only available to institutional or accredited investors.
