Defensive telcos hounded by Fed rate hike fears

Should investors be spooked?

Telco stocks are often favoured for their defensive nature and stable dividend yields. However, this attractive trait is now being eroded by fears of an interest rate hike by the US Federal Reserve.

OCBC Investment Research notes that while rate hike fears are a key detriment to the attractiveness of telco stocks, investors should think twice before moving their funds from this defensive sector.

“From the latest set of sluggish economic data out of the US, market watchers have pushed back the likelihood for a rate hike to 3Q or 4Q 2015. And even if there is a rate hike then, most market players believe that the Fed would still adopt a “wait and see” approach and not push for a series of rapid rate hikes in succession. As such, we do not expect the telcos to lose much of their relative attractive against other safe investment options like fixed deposits,” said OCBC.

Reaching the people who run Asia's businesses is harder than it used to be.

Inboxes are crowded. Attention is short. The executives you most want to reach — the founders, CFOs, and operators who actually move budgets — are the hardest to find through the usual channels. If you're building a company, a category, or a reputation, you already know this.

We've spent twenty years building the room they read. Singapore Business Review is where senior decision makers in Singapore and across Southeast Asia come for business coverage they can't get elsewhere — in print, online, and in person at the summits and roundtables we host across seven markets.

If you have something these readers should know about — a point of view worth publishing, a product worth their attention, an event worth their time — we'd like to hear what you're trying to do.

Book a meeting

| Or download the media kit (PDF)

240,000 senior readers quarterly in print Top 1,700 Singapore companies reached

7 markets across Southeast Asia