Will local investors take to foreign-listed tech stocks like Sea after inclusion in key indices?

THE likely imminent inclusion of Nasdaq-listed Sea Ltd in the MSCI Singapore Indices is widely expected to boost investment sentiment across the local market.

Yet, until many more such "new economy" companies are added to Singapore's key market benchmarks, Sea may well be treated as an anomaly by investors - a stock to watch separately and analyse differently from the staid stalwarts that currently dominate the scene.

More than 58 per cent of the MSCI Singapore Index (MXSG) is weighted towards DBS, OCBC, UOB and Singtel - companies that are tightly regulated and which investors assess on the basis of valuation metrics such as price-to-earnings ratios, price-to-book values and, perhaps most importantly, dividend yields.