[ET Net News Agency, 15 January 2020] Daiwa Research lifted its target price for China
Merchants Securities (CMSC)(06099) to HK$10.5 from HK$8 and upgraded its rating to "hold"
from "underperform".
The research house sees CMSC's brokerage and asset management (AM) business improving
slightly, as investment banking (IB) gains momentum. While traditionally having a higher
portion of institutional and high-net-worth (HNW) brokerage customers than its peers, CMSC
started to see a retail shift in customer mix in 2019, as its number of eligible retail
accounts was up 11% HoH in 1H 2019 but total wealth management clients rose just 1% HoH.
If the current favourable sentiment towards A-share stocks persists, Daiwa sees CMSC
benefiting from this retail shift in light of year-to-date 2020 A-share ADT (average daily
turnover) of CNY732bn versus CNY523bn for 2019. (KL)