Many stocks have become “a bit cheaper” and investors could get good returns, according to one portfolio manager. Ted Alexander, chief investment officer of BML Funds, told CNBC’s ” Street Signs Asia ” on Monday that he was a little concerned about valuations a couple of months ago — but that has changed. “Now, we’ve seen quite a lot of stocks coming up and there’s quite a lot of discounted stocks out there,” he said. “So we’ve been looking a lot at the industrials and consumer stocks that have been quite beaten up in the last few months. They’re offering pretty good potential returns, if we see anything like return to normal in the next few years,” he added. Alexander manages the BML Global Fund, which was launched only in September. The fund aims to invest in strong businesses that are undervalued by the market, without a bias toward growth or value stocks. He was previously portfolio manager of the Orca Global Fund, which is now closed. That fund returned 48.92% between July 2018 and June 2022, beating the 41.41% for its benchmark MSCI World index. September lived up to its reputation for being a weak month — it was the worst one so far this year for the S & P 500 and Nasdaq Composite . Alexander named five discounted stocks to consider right now. Five discounted names He named these five global stocks in the industrials and consumer sectors: Germany’s DHL and Siemens , Hong Kong’s Techtronic , China’s Nari and India’s Infosys . He said Techtronic has “multiple growth drivers” from product and geographic expansion. He described Nari and Infosys as “high quality companies that are globally competitive at a discount.” As for electric power equipment Nari, he said it’s worthwhile to invest in more efficiency in energy markets and modernizing grids. “So Nari is one that has been extremely strong in the past when Chinese markets were really bullish … so you’re really betting on Chinese industrial strength,” Alexander said. “We think this is a long-term winner.” He said the cyclical opportunities have emerged in industrial and consumer facing companies. “We like technology. That’s where you think there’s this great spending coming through. However, we think the valuations there are very strong in a lot of software companies, and it’s hard to get that excited about some of those Magnificent Seven large caps at these prices,” he said. “So we’ve been pushing probably a bit out of tech and over in towards healthcare, into consumer, and into industrials a bit more.”
