COVID-19 losers still trading at discount
Despite the rally of equities affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, many still trade at a discount to their actual value, according to Tribeca Investment Partners.
Jun Bei Liu, Tribeca Investment Partners lead portfolio manager, said with people going back to work, school and shopping, it was close to a return to normality.
“Regardless of the surge in the second or third wave of COVID globally, the availability and acceleration of the vaccine rollout will drive strong performance of the companies impacted by COVID lockdowns and social distancing,” Bei Liu said.
Some of those sectors included tourism, property trusts and hospitals, which she said had already been boosted in some cases, and despite that initial rally, many of those stocks had continued to trade at a meaningful discount to what their intrinsic value was.
“We all use Zoom and there are people not returning to work but in the last six months, despite the lockdown and increased restrictions across many cities within Australia, we’re still seeing office utilisation continue to increase,” Bei Liu said.
“Some of the shorter-term leases in terms of the price over the next six months have escalated meaningfully over the past couple of months – in the next 12 months, we expect that to return to the pre-COVID level.”
Shopping centres had also shown similar growth since lockdown had ended.
“Many cities in Australia have already returned to pre-COVID levels of foot traffic, if not more, and for the cities that had a much longer lockdown, we’re actually seeing quite a sharp pick up quite quickly,” Bei Liu said.
“Same story can be said about the surgical volume for private hospitals; we all remember last year to ensure enough beds for COVID related infections, private hospitals reduced elective surgery.
“But that demand has seen significant growth and the waiting list is over 12-18 months long.”
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