Southeast Asian markets recovered from early losses on Wednesday to end marginally higher, led by a 1.5% rise in Indonesian stocks, which was powered by gains in consumer and telecom stocks.
Local investors in the Indonesian market moved into stocks that would benefit from the work-from-home scenario, according to Hariyanto Wijaya, head of research at Mirae Asset Sekuritas Indonesia.
Telecom stocks, which have substantial weightage in Indonesia's benchmark, in particular have been benefitting from the lockdown in the country amid the COVID-19 pandemic, as data traffic has been growing exponentially. Analysts expect this to lead to a 6%-7% rise in 2020 revenue for the cellular industry.
In the same vein, Indonesia's XL Axiata closed up 11%, its highest since Feb. 28. The wireless telecom company said it remains cautiously positive and expects COVID-19 tailwinds in March to boost traffic volumes going into the second quarter of 2020.
Thai stocks closed up 0.7% after falling as much as 1.7% earlier in the day.
Malaysia's main index settled marginally higher, with Top Glove Corp closing up 5.4% and Hartalega Holdings 4.4% higher.
Meanwhile, Philippines closed the session 0.3% down, with Alliance Global falling 4.5% and GT Capital tumbling over 5%.
Comments
Comments are closed.