ASEAN Speaks

In this week’s ASEAN Speaks, our host Thilan kicks off with the latest tailwinds driving Southeast Asia’s internet and telecom sectors. Hussaini, our TMT analyst, breaks down Sea Limited’s Shopee momentum and AI-driven gaming push, then explains why he’s bullish on Singapore Telecommunications and Indosat. Finally, Seng Yeow from our Quant team reviews Malaysia’s 2Q earnings season, highlighting p...

In this week’s ASEAN Speaks, our host Thilan looks at why Singapore continues to attract safe haven flows amidst regional uncertainty. Hussaini, our TMT analyst, shares why he thinks the telco sector still has more upside, with a new BUY on StarHub and higher target price on Singtel. Next, our transport analyst, Eric highlights ComfortDelGro’s latest CityCab deal, explaining why this could close t...

In this week's ASEAN Speaks, our host Thilan goes through the many tailwinds boosting Singapore's market. Brian comes in to talk about Singapore's recent jump in manaufacturing numbers and why the economics team is forecasting a potentially higher GDP growth for Singapore. Hussaini, our TMT analyst talks about Singtel's recent investor day and the key takeaways that he believes sup...

In this week's episode Jarick Seet is stepping in for Thilan as today's host. Jarick opens today's episode by talking about how markets are currently fatigued from Trump's tariffs reflecting in investors' actions over the past week. Krishna comes on to talk about ST Engineering and why he believed fundamentally the stock looks weak explaining his downgrade to a HOLD. Jarick als...

In this week's episode, Thilan highlights several stock picks amidst earnings seasons and a lot of tariff uncertainties as well as geopolitical issues. Jarick comes on to talk about his recent initiation Sanli Environmental which he believes will benefit largely from potential government contracts. Jarick also briefly goes through CSE Global's results and explains why it was inline with ex...

In this week’s episode of ASEAN Speaks, our host Thilan kicks off with Jarick, who shares his take on Venture and how changes in the tech sector drives his upgrade to a BUY call. The conversation then moves to Singapore’s three big banks — DBS, UOB and OCBC — where Thilan looks at the differences in their results, the pressures on net interest margins, and what might be ahead for capital returns a...

In this week’s episode of ASEAN Speaks, our host Thilan unpacks the STI’s rebound after a six-day losing streak, supported by signs that Singapore may avoid major fallout from Trump’s new tariffs. He discusses how this could revive interest in domestic sectors like construction, safe-haven flows, and capital returns. Hussaini comes on to shares his views on Sheng Siong after a slower 2Q, and dives...

In this week’s episode of ASEAN Speaks, our host Seng Yeow welcomes Jarick to unpack MAS’s new $50bn EQDP programme and its potential to drive concentrated flows into non-index sectors. Jarick shares five BUY calls for the week: Food Empire Holdings, ISOTeam, ComfortDelGro, CSE Global, and Frencken, explaining why each is poised to benefit from raw material trends, sector positioning, and strong c...

In this week’s episode of ASEAN Speaks, our host Thilan breaks down the STI’s record-breaking 11-day rally—the longest in 20 years—and explores what could drive the next leg higher as MAS prepares to announce the first recipients of the EQDP fund. Hussaini initiates Sheng Siong on a BUY despite the 30% rally the stock has seen this year, and he also initiates on Thai Beverage, explaining why he is...

In this week's episode of ASEAN Speaks, our chief Economist, Hak Bin Chua talks about Trump tariffs, and what our region has in store in terms of economics for the second half of the year. Hussaini Saifee, our TMT analyst comes in to talk about recent developments regarding the recent restriction of AI chips exports and what it would mean for data centres in Malaysia and Thailand. Our analyst...

In this week's episode of ASEAN Speaks, our host Thilan paints the best-case scenario for ASEAN amidst all of Trump's uncertainties. Jarick our SMIDs analyst goes through his Opportunity+ Stock, ISOTeam and why he believes there is a lot of upside potential. Anand our regional head of research dials in, giving his input on how the six ASEAN markets will develop and what stocks investors sh...

In this week's episode of ASEAN Speaks, our host Thilan discusses upgraded STI targets and why he believes the index will break through the 4000 barrier and what he believes are some of the stocks that are well positioned to benefit. Brian Lee, our economist joins us to look at how core inflation moderated from 0.7% to 0.6% and what he believes the inflation will be like for the rest of the ye...

In this week's episode of ASEAN Speaks, Singapore's Head of Research, Thilan Wickramasinghe gives us his take on his recent increase in target price for the SGX, given the current volatile market. Hussaini also comes on today to speak about his recent reports on Sea Limited, Grab Holdings and Singapore Telecommunications Ltd as well as several takeaways while speaking to clients over the past week...

In this week’s show our host Thilan discusses the MAS Equity Market Development Fund and the 18 screened stocks that we see benefits the most that have relatively strong corporate governance. Our analyst from Thailand, Boonyakorn recently upgraded Airports of Thailand to a BUY and he goes through why he sees more upside now. Hussaini also comes in to talk about his brand new survey on ASEAN Intern...

Diversify, diversify, diversify! That is the name of the game. In today's episode, our host, Thilan bring us his review on our Macro Team's highly recommended report. We will delve in deep to explore whether the softening of the US dollar is structural or temporary as it loses its domimamce as a world reserve currency. Next, we are joined by our Regional Strategist Anand Pathmakanthan as h...

In today's episode of ASEAN Speaks, our host Thilan is joined by Krishna Guha our REITs analyst and Brian Lee our macroeconomist. Krishna goes through his recent conversations with many of the REITs management and with investors going through what his key observations of the REITs subsector is and how investors are positioned as well. Our host Thilan discusses on Singapore bank's loan grow...

In this week’s episode of ASEAN Speaks, our host Thilan reviews Singapore's Q1 GDP outperformance and unpacks selected safe-haven stock picks. Economist Brian Lee joins us to discuss the driving factors behind Singapore's GDP growth and growth forecasts for subsequent quarters. Thilan discusses ISO team's outlook given the anticiapted influx of HDB tenders post General Election amongst other struc...

In this week’s episode of ASEAN Speaks, our host Thilan unpacks Moody’s downgrade of the US credit rating and the market implications of easing US-China tariffs. Economist Erica Tay joins us to explore what this shift means for China and ASEAN economies. We break down Sea Ltd’s stellar 1Q25 results and why we’ve raised our target price. SMID's Analyst, Jarick Seet is is optimistic about CSE Gl...

In this week's epsiode of ASEAN Speaks our host Thilan unpacks the implications of Singapore's General Election and what it means for market stability amid global uncertainty. Once again highlighting our top 40 Singapore-First Picks. Our REITS analyst breaks down 1Q results for most REITs, going through the risks facing the sector and why he remains positive despite a weak quarter. While o...

In this week's epsiode of ASEAN Speaks our host Thilan dives deeper into our Singapore Strategy amidst tariff uncertainty, highlighting 40 stocks that we have screened with more than 50% of revenue derived in the domestic market. Eric Ong, one of our analysts comes on the show to talk about Raffles Medical being a local champion, explaining his upgraded target price and some catalysts for the stoc...

In today's episode of ASEAN Speaks, we dive deeper into the REITs sector which we believe is our best defensive pick in the ASEAN market. As well as our economist Brian Lee going across Singapore's export numbers and why his forecasts for Singapore's GDP has remained the same. Krishna, our REITs analyst, maintains a POSITIVE view on S-REITs and goes through why after stress testing he...

In this week's episode of ASEAN Speaks, our host Thilan is joined by our Economist, Brian Lee to give us new insights on MAS’s policy easing and Singapore’s GDP forecast downgrade and Senior Analyst Eric Ong shares why ComfortDelGro could be a safe haven. Thilan unpacks the downgrade of Singapore banks to Neutral and takes a deep dive into the uncertainty of the markets. On Behalf of Senior An...

In this week's episode of ASEAN SPEAKS, our host Thilan is joined by our Regional Equity Strategist, Anand Pathmakanthan, to unpack the equity implications of Trump’s Liberation Day tariffs, especially for ASEAN markets like Vietnam, Thailand, and Malaysia. Our Co-Head of Macro Research, Dr Chua Hak Bin, shares his views on the economic impact, including ASEAN growth downgrades and how China’s...

In this week's episode of ASEAN Speaks, our host Thilan invites our economist Chua Hak Bin to talk about the US's Liberation Day and how that would impact the ASEAN market. Our SMIDs analyst, Jarick Seet goes through why he is upgrading ISOTeam's target price amidst its CEO buying ISOTeam shares. With increased rumours of Grab merging with GoTo, our analyst from Indonesia, Etta Rusdian...

In this episode, our host goes through an ASEAN Equity Overview of the ASEAN-6 (Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand and Philippines) done by Anand Pathmakanthan, Head of Regional Equity Research. Our SMIDs analyst, Jarick Seet, also goes through why he is confident on rating Frencken as a BUY despite the recent slowing down of the semi-conductor space in Singapore, expecting a recove...