Friday, March 07, 2008

HwangDBS and its Call Warrants

Was alerted by Jamesy on the following story. HwangDBS rolls out structured warrants

  • HWANGDBS Investment Bank Bhd will roll out its first retail structured products for this year today - two call warrants that leverage on the upside potential of two of China’s leading blue chip stocks, China Railway Group Ltd and China Mobile Ltd.

    They provide investors with alternative investment choices and the opportunity to gain exposure to China stocks for a small investment outlay, said HwangDBS in a statement. The issue price of the call warrants is set at 11 sen for China Mobile and 10 sen for China Railway, and the exercise price is set at HK$111 (RM45.13) for China Mobile and HK$9.30 (RM3.78) for China Railway, it said.
The very last line in the article was most interesting.
  • HwangDBS chief executive officer Alex Hwang’s view is that in bear markets, equities and equity derivatives such as call warrants are a good choice, especially blue chips and heavyweights with an upside story.

OMG!

I guess when one wants to sell a product, most of the time they will say anything!

Let's examine that statement.

In a bear market, what would most likely happen to blue chips and heavyweights? My answer? I would imagine that since it's a bear market, by the law of averages, most blue chips and heavyweights would be hit bad, since by definition, it's a bear market. And if that's the case, how could derivative such as call warrants be a good choice?

Of couse, as noted, it was stated blue chips and heavyweights with an upside story. That's always possible. But in a bear market, finding blue chips with upside story is extremely difficult! And if it's difficult, again I ask, would call warrants be a good choice?

So in a bear market, do you reckon call warrants are good ideas?

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