A time for selective buying: Principal Global Invst

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It is red all across Asia on the back of overnight Wall Street cues. Kirk West , MD -Investment Strategy Asia, Principal Global Investors told CNBC-TV18 that although there might me some noise day-to-day, week-to-week, the big moves down are  probably over for now. Looking at an 12-18 months timeframe, now is a time for selective buying said West.
 

Excerpts from CNBC-TV18's exclusive interview with Kirk West:

Q: Your assessment of Asia tracking Wall Street cues of course of a weaker economy on back of the jobs report. Do you expect any intervention of sorts right now to calm nerves?

A: You are right another very disappointing start to the market today and a very disappointing start to the year with most markets now down over 20%. But I think you have to remember that we are going to get noise day-to-day, week to week but the big moves down are probably now over and if we look to 12-18 months out and that is where equity markets typically look; now it is probably a time for good selective buying.

Q: What would be your recommendations in Asia?

A: We are very much going to see on companies, which are geared towards domestic consumption and example of that would be something like Chunghwa Telecom in Taiwan. And when we look at the materials etc we see lot of companies which have now priced in the worst case scenario, we see some value there.

Q: What is your call on the entire commodity pack when it comes to Asia because that is the one, which is taking it on the chin?

A: You are right we are now seeing a lot of the energy market off 30% from their peaks but we have to remember there are 50% up from a year ago. So I think the big moves for the near-term are over for the commodity markets and that has been due to some demand disruption and a more benign geopolitical outlook and also some unwinding of speculative positions.

I think we are going to see little bit more stability, you may see it drift down further but again longer-term the fundamentals are sound, so I don't think we are going to see the levels that we saw 12 months ago.