Web investments are hot again, thanks to the prominence of recent floats of LinkedIn and Renren.
Kevin Tam (Core Pacific-Yamaichi)
Buy: Tencent (700)
Tam is a fan of Tencent, one of the best performing stocks on the Hong Kong exchange in the past seven years, having registered a 57-fold increase in its market cap since listing in June 2004. Tencent offers mobile internet services, it is the third most used web search engine, a thriving microblog function, and a much used internet payment system, among many businesses. Tam in particular likes Tencent's web-games business, one of the top players on the mainland. Tam sees a lot of potential for any business that is plugged into the firm's 'platform', or its large base of users (of about 350 million).
Cynthia Meng (Jefferies)
Buy: Tencent (700), Baidu (BIDU)
Meng has recently initiated coverage on these stocks and likes both of them, if only because they offer exposure to the mainland's explosive internet use.
