Amanah Saham Nasional Bhd (ASNB), a wholly-owned unit trust management company of Permodalan Nasional Bhd (PNB), has declared an income distribution of 5.25 sen a unit for its flagship fund for FY2023.
Bank Muamalat Malaysia Bhd chief economist Afzanizam Rashid said local sectors such as property and construction as well as medium and small capitalised companies had recorded satisfactory performance and contributed to the increase in ASNB’s income.
“The dividend performance for this year for ASB unit trust managed by ASNB showed a commendable improvement compared with last year, even though the benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) registered a decline of 2.5% year-to-date.
“The Property and Construction Indices showed a rise of 33.1% and 23.5% respectively, while the FBM Mid 70 and FBM Small Cap recorded an increasing trend of 11.6% and 8.6%,” he told Bernama.
Apart from that, Afzanizam said that the strategy for investment in the international market also made a positive contribution to ASNB’s portfolio performance.
“The key global indices recorded a significant increase. For instance, (in the US) the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite rose 22.4% and 41.2% respectively. Hence, this provided strong support to the investment performance of ASB,” he said.
He also expected the equity market to be continuously challenging in the future.
“Nevertheless, the anticipation of an interest rate cut by the US Federal Reserve is expected to boost the market.
“This is because the cut in interest rate would help the global economy with the reduction in financing cost and stimulate economic activities through capital spending,” he said.
Additionally, Afzanizam reckoned that sectors such as renewable energy and technology are expected to be the main drivers of the financial market.
As for the FBM KLCI, he said the market bellwether is projected to see an uptrend due to its low valuation which would attract interest from foreign investors.
“On the back of the government’s budget that is still expanding and efforts for economic reforms, this would certainly attract foreign investors’ attention to invest in shares that are considered as undervalued in the local market,” he added.