Prudential Financial overweight on U.S. stocks
TAIPEI Jan 21 (Reuters) - Prudential Financial (PRU.N), one of the largest U.S. life insurers, is overweight on U.S. stocks believing widely expected U.S. interest rate cuts would keep any recession short and boost stocks, an executive said on Monday.
"There could be a recession, but it's going to be short," Chief Investment Officer Glenwyn P. Baptist of Prudential International Investments told reporters in Taipei.
The comments came after U.S. stocks slumped for a fourth day on Friday to close out the worst week for the S&P 500 in five years on worries that a White House stimulus package would not be enough to forestall a recession.
Baptist, who supervises more than US$100 billion of client assets, said Prudential Financial was also overweight on stocks in emerging markets China and India.
However, the firm is underweight on Taiwan shares due to uncertainty over the island's presidential elections in March and the heavy dependence of Taiwan's tech exports to the U.S. market, he said.
Taiwan's main TAIEX .TWII fell 0.91 percent on Monday, hurt by a 1.12 percent slide in the electronics sub-index .TELI, on concerns the U.S. subprime crisis will hinder exports of Taiwan's technology products to the United States.
(Reporting by Ricci Chan, Writing by Faith Hung; editing by Dominic Whiting)
((Reuters Messaging: faith.hung.reuters.com@reuters.net; +886 2 2508-0815)) Keywords: PRUDENTIALFIN STOCKS
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