(Adds suruge of new accounts in Malaysia as well)
* Asia-wide surge in new broker accounts
* 'Buy the dip' searches peak on Google
* Big caps, heavily sold sectors are popular buys -broker
By Abhirup Roy and Joori Roh
MUMBAI/SEOUL, March 27 (Reuters) - Crashing markets are
driving the biggest rush from Asian retail investors into stocks
in a decade or more, brokers say, as bargain-hunting and a fear
of missing out prompts a scramble to "buy the dip".
Even as global coronavirus infections and deaths continue to
mount and more companies issue profit warnings, stockbroker
switchboards from Sydney to Singapore have lit up with calls
from erstwhile punters wanting to invest.
Indian brokerages say they have never signed on so many new
customers so quickly, while deposits at their South Korean peers
have jumped to a record high as investors hunt for bargains
after a $12 trillion wipeout in world stocks.
"If people were waiting for a pullback, well they got it and
then some," said Chris Brankin, chief executive at brokerage TD
Ameritrade in Singapore, where a 50% monthly jump in new
accounts was the best since setting up there nine years ago.
"The one thing that has been difficult for us, is that as
soon as people register for an account, they say 'Can I trade
now?' I'm like...it's a couple-day process to be able to get the
account open and then get money into it."
Driving the interest has been wall-to-wall coverage of both
the coronavirus crisis and a plunge in global markets.
About a fifth of the value of world stocks has been lost in
the past six weeks and no asset class has been spared. Many
small investors seem to feel this is an unrivalled opportunity -
particularly as markets have rallied hard in the last few days.
Google searches for the bargain-hunter's catchcry, "buy the
dip," hit an all-time high on Wednesday, Google Trends data
shows.
And where Asian indexes have fallen the furthest, interest
from mum-and-pop investors has jumped the most as they deploy
long-held savings or draw down loans to buy shares.
In India, brokerage Zerodha has already opened a record
140,000 new accounts this month - double the average. The S&P
Sensex index's .BSESN 30% drop since January makes it one of
the world's worst performing markets.
CommSec, Australia's largest retail broker, said account
openings had increased fourfold in March. Brokers in Manila,
Hong Kong, Bangkok, Tokyo, Kuala Lumpur and Jakarta reported
surges as well.
In Korea, where the benchmark Kospi .KS11 is down by a
quarter since January, retail investors lifted their broker
deposits 53% to a record 41 trillion won ($34
billion). "This is the best opportunity I have seen in 10 years to get
into stocks," said Cho Hyun-suk, a 40-year old office worker in
Seoul, who had been steering clear of the market since the
global financial crisis.
"I was a fresh graduate when many of the mutual funds just
halved in value, too many. I plan to make a big investment with
my seed money I have been saving up, at the right timing," she
said, without disclosing the size of her planned purchases.
Investors have looked to previous crises for clues on a
rebound.
After the 2002-2003 SARS outbreak, which was mostly confined
to Asia and hit Asia's markets hardest - the rebound was sharp.
Hong Kong's Hang Seng index .HSI dropped 18% in about four
months, then surged by almost a third in the second half of
2003.
The decline in the 2008/2009 financial crisis and the
recovery both took much longer. The MSCI All-Country index
.MIWD00000PUS lost 56% over 10 months, with plenty of false
dawns along the way. It was nearly five-and-a-half years before
it regained 2008 levels.
Falls over the past few weeks, though, have outpaced even
Wall Street's 1929 crash.
The breadth and scale of the lockdowns and business closures
across the globe are also unprecedented, prompting governments
to pump in trillions of dollars in support and central banks to
slash interest rates, fuelling the supply of cheap
cash. WARREN BUFFETS
It is less clear what exactly these investors are doing with
their money, though blue chips at home and abroad are common
themes.
In China, where the number of stock trading accounts rose
nearly 12% through February, inflows have swamped funds that
facilitate international investment. Moleonoto The, CEO of Indonesian brokerage IndoPremier, said
some clients who usually invested through mutual funds now want
to buy big-cap stocks directly.
TD Ameritrade's Brankin said many Asian investors were
hoping the hardest-hit travel and energy sectors may have hit
bottom. Cruise line Carnival Corp CCL.N , down 65% this year,
has become one of the most popular buys.
Others though, were speculative, or seeking to hedge pension
fund investments by making bets on further market falls.
"It is not Warren Buffet style buy and hold investing - it
is short term," said Louis Tse, managing director at Hong Kong
based VC Asset Management, which also offers brokerage services.
It is also risky against a backdrop of increasingly dire
news about the pandemic and a global recession analysts say is
all but certain.
More than 24,000 people have died from the virus so far,
three million people filed jobless claims in the United States
last week and professional investors caution against calling the
end of a bear market.
"It's absolutely impossible to know when the bottom has been
reached - ever," said Oaktree Capital Management founder Howard
Marks in a note to investors last week.
"I believe this is a good time to invest, although of course
it may prove not to have been the best time."
($1 = 1,212.1500 won)