Bangladesh moving ahead
Ekram Belal On e-mail
Let me draw a parallel between a small company and a small developing country. Sooner or later investors will notice and flock to invest in a company as long as it grows. I have observed one thing being 25 years in the United States and have been working in the financial arena for long that investors avoid small stocks in early bull market but when all blue chip stocks run up through the roof and investors cannot afford blue chips or there is not much growth opportunity in blue chips any more, then they turn to small stocks trading in smaller exchange. Those small stocks trading in their low multiples start moving up. Not all of small stocks will participate in bull run but the promising one will participate in the next run up. Good investors know about it and they start buying slowly and keep adding to their portfolio. One stock I like to point out is Computer Associates (CA). Computer Associates was a small software company in Long Island, New York. I saw how a small software company would become a software giant in less than 20 years. Now Computer Associate is a blue chip company. CA is a major competitor of Microsoft and Oracle.I would like to draw a parallel of Computer Associates with Malaysia. We all knew that Honk Kong and Singapore were two Asian Tigers after the second largest economy of the world, Japan. But who knew that so many Asian Tigers are there to follow? Stock of Japan went up already and then Honk Kong, Singapore and Korea followed and other Tigers followed them. I consider Malaysia was like Computer Associates 25 years ago. Now Malaysia is another Asian Tiger to reckon with. So the strategy is to be small and grow consistently. The value of the stock is bound to go up. When IBM was too expensive, it was time to look for not IBM but future IBM (in this case Computer Associates). In case of a country, it is time to look for next Asian Tiger but there are not many Asian Tigers in South East Asia but there are other Tigers in South Asia. Stock of India already went up and moved up rapidly. So now is the time for investors to look for next Asian stock where investors can participate and make profit. Hopefully it is we, Bangladesh. If we keep on improving and open up to new avenues and Look-East, we could be one unless our government fails to handle the situation. If two major parties do not get it and botch up the prospect, there should be a third force in the form of civil society organisations that can take charge for the people of Bangladesh. The government is the public agent appointed by people through a democratic process. This is not a country of certain group of people; it is the country of all Bangladeshis. The BNP or Awami League, when in government, represents the whole country not just a party. We have a kind of democracy which is unique because we are not yet civilised enough to trust each other. So we need a caretaker government for now. We are learning and developing economically and politically. Our stock is bound to go up. Investors from East and West are watching and buying slowly. There is a bull run ahead of us. Free economy and Look-East policy of our government will help us to attain our goal.
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