Still much scope for contrarians in the present market

IN "A Singapore Stock Market Wish List for 2017'' published in this column towards the end of last year, we noted that throughout 2016 the Singapore stock market had lagged some of its regional peers quite significantly but added that this relative underperformance could become a source of subsequent outperformance.

"Since markets have a habit of suddenly latching on to the laggard theme when it suits or when upward momentum starts to take grip, our third wish would be for this to occur in 2017 - or at the very least, for international money to embrace the local market's traditional 'defensive' reputation," the Hock Lock Siew column dated Dec 23, 2016, had said.

(For those interested, the first two wishes were that the US Federal Reserve normalises interest rates as quickly as possible with 2-3 hikes in 2017 and tha…