HND – Outstanding 3Q among thermal power plants

While we have maintained our view since last year that La Nina’s comeback will cause thermal power plants to have a difficult time in 2020 and 2021, HND stands out as an exception, reporting high earnings quarters after quarters. 3Q2020, too, witnessed HND’s earnings surging 88% YoY despite low volume and unfavorable conditions on the Competitive Generation Market (CGM). Until the end of 2020, we are going to keep our target price at VND 20,800 (plus a VND 1,200 cash dividend expected in the next twelve months), implying a total upside of 22%. By the end of 2020, we will evaluate HND’s potential in terms of volume growth, earnings, debt payment and most importantly its PPA, in order to see if the company’s current advantages can be prolonged fromm 2021 onwards. The hydrological conditions are not going to favor thermal power companies for the next couple of years.

IMP: Cost cutting to overcome tough times

Although the core business was hit strongly by COVID-19, IMP took effective measures to cut SG&A expenses and maintained a high net income growth rate in 3Q. Due to higher orders and attempts to cut expenses, we expect that the company will record the highest quarterly net income ever in 4Q2020 and fulfill the annual pre-tax profit target of VND 260 billion. Owing to its large potential from EU-GMP factories and favorable policies, IMP has a bright prospect in 2021. We will update our 2021 forecast in the next Result Update Report. Currently, we recommend to ACCUMULATE IMP shares with a target price of VND 53,000, plus a cash dividend of VND1,500. The total return is 17% at the closing price on October 20^th, 2020.

Global economic growth

Prospects for economic growth 2021 will depend on various factors, including the likelihood of government assistance/fiscal stimulus and most importantly consumer and investors’ confidence. Confidence is a behavioral issue. When one gets “burned”, it takes time to return to some kind of normality as pessimism is a long process to correct. Just look at Japanese banks… still trading at price to book values of less than one for decades and their stock prices going nowhere (Figure 1).

Vietnam at risk of being labelled as a currency manipulator

On 02 Oct 2020, the US Trade Representative (USTR) initiated an investigation regarding Vietnam’s currency manipulation. This investigation came after the US Department of Treasury concluded that Vietnam’s currency was undervalued in a specific trade case involving tires in Aug 2020. As Vietnam is already on the US Treasury’s watch list of currency manipulators, we suggest that investors should closely follow the investigation’s progress in order to have suitable actions in the future.

Steel production and consumption in 9M2020 – Strong recovery in 3Q

Several steel sub-segments have recorded an increase in selling volume during 9M2020 compared to the same period last year, including coated steel pipe, while other segments witnessed a decrease. As can be seen in figure 1, construction steel consumption fell by 2.5% YoY caused by the slower construction industry’s growth. Due to weaker construction activities during the pandemic, the construction industry’s growth rate dropped from 8.3% YoY in 9M2019 to 5.0% YoY in 9M2020. Coated steel selling volume increased by 4.6% YoY in 9M2020 due to the strong growth of 11.2% in exports from a low base in 2019. Steel pipe consumption grew slightly by 2.4% in 9M2020 due to the good demand from the domestic market.

AST: Negative outlook until international tourists return

AST’s business result was hit severely by two waves of Covid-19. The first wave made 1H-2020 revenue plunged 55.5% YoY due to closing all of retailing stores in April and stores at international terminals until June while the second covid outbreak in Da Nang caused the airport there which accounted for the largest proportion of total revenue (about 40% in the pre-Covid period) to suffer drastically. AST has around 40 stores at the existing airports’ international terminals, but most of them are temporarily closed at the moment.

Overall, AST’s current situation and short-term outlook are quite negative due to the lack of international tourists, of which the contribution is the main driver for AST’s profitability while domestic flyers’ purchasing power is rather low especialy in the time of the pandemic. We believe the international commercial flights as well as consumer confidence, which plays an important role in the retailing purchasing power at airports, are unlikely to recover soon, at least in FY2020.

ANV 9M2020 – Solar energy to be the new growth driver from 2021 on

The company’s core business of pangasius processing and exporting is recovering more slowly than our expectations. However, the solar business is going to be an important profit generator from 2021 onward. Together with the recovery of pangasius exports, we expect a strong performance in 2021. Therefore, we revise up the company’s target price from VND 12,500/share to VND 22,000/share. As the company has no plan for a cash dividend in 2020, the total return is 9% based on the closing price of Oct 12nd, 2020. Although the solar energy project has just started the construction and its contribution to 2020 results may be moderate, the market seems to have already reflected the project in the stock price with a trailing PER of 5.8x, the highest level since 2018 when the company finished restructuring and pangasius selling prices reached a historical ten-year high. Considering all these factors, we recommend to ACCUMULATE this stock.

Residential real estate market: Q3 2020 witnessed some recovery.

In Q3 2020, the residential real estate market recovered strongly with total sold units at 9,813, +44% QoQ while new launches  also showed good progress at 22,602 units, +23% QoQ versus Q2 2020. However, new launches in the condo segment in Ha Noi and HCMC still recorded a drop of 52% and 33% YoY, respectively  as the market has not fully recovered. From our view, the decent performance in Q3 is a good basis for a stronger recovery in Q4 2020 and 2021. Moreover, the acceleration of public investment this year, especially in infrastructure projects (e.g. Metro No.1, Ho Chi Minh City–Long Thanh–Dau Giay Expressway) and the continuous recovery of the economy in upcoming years also supports the real estate market. However, we are still concerned about some inherent risks such as (1) Continuous supply shortage in two prime locations - HCMC and Ha Noi caused by the lengthy licensing procedures, (2) Weak demand in cities  hurt by Covid-19’s second wave such as Da Nang and Quang Nam.

PC1: Hydropower is recovering strongly but overall earnings growth requires more

2020 was supposed to be a strong year for PC1. So far it has been quite strong in terms of share price performance. However, we had thought its fundamentals would have recovered more remarkably in all  three business segments. Hydropower has been the only one that satisfied our expectations so far since La Nina’s cameback in 2Q2020. In contrast, power construction activities seem to have remained under impact from COVID-19. Similarly, the handover progress at PC1’s new apartment block is slower than expected. As a result, the overall business performance is going to gradually improve during the last quarter of the year, instead of rebounding in 3Q as we had thought. Our current target price is VND 26,600, which implies a lot of upside for the next twelve months as we think there are still opportunities for higher earnings growth.

US monetary policy

Jerome Powell, Chairman of the US Federal Reserve (FED) talked at the National Association for Business Economics' 62nd Annual Meeting on Tuesday October 6. He took office as Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System on February 5, 2018, for a four-year term. Key messages from that speech:

• Economic activity in the US is not expected to return to pre-crisis levels until late 2021.
• The US economy still has a long way to go before it bounces up.

Automotive industry - Government policies help the automotive industry to recover

To conclude, we believe that car sale volume will continue to recover in 4Q2020 and 2021 due to the supportive policies from the government and the recovery of people's income. Meanwhile, the pressure to liquidate inventories from 2019 will force companies to reduce selling prices, leading to a slight decline in GPM. However, overall gross profit will still grow because of increased sale volume. In addition, the recovery of demand will help companies save selling costs, thereby increasing PBT.