During the Global Financial Crisis in 2009, it dropped below RM4. And if you bought it then, 10 years ago, you would have got more than RM5 in dividends, in addition to capital gain.

Banking stock is boring as they do not require much capex. So they would usually distribute up to 70% of their income to shareholders. Since there is not much growth story in the banking industry, expect the price to be stagnant.
Plus with the entry of so many disruptors now, it caused more competition in the financing field. Margins will have to be cut, more and more sophisticated investments coming up forcing banks to increase their cost of loan.
We should be lucky that the price is still holding up despite all these "bad" news. Pray that the price stays the same (while we continue receive above 6% DY). Any further deterioration in the stock price will just force us to keep topping up.

Currently, banking stocks are like yield play.

Room for upside is limited by slow loan growth and low interest rate environment.
Banks earning improvement only can come from
1. More loan given out
2. NIM (Net interest margin) expansion.

1) Economy slow down, hence less loan needed, loan growth projected likelyhood in the region of 5% +/-.  So the likelyhood of dramatically increase of profit is low.

2) NIM won't see widening as cost of fund may not cheap for banks due to slow deposit growth.

So banking stocks generally are likelyhood to be traded at range bound tightly.
As current pricing is not that expensive, some banking stocks yield can be better than FD rate.
But upside is limited due to risk of NPL and stagnant earning figure.

This is not limited to Malaysia banking stocks, but many worldwide banks across. Many banking stocks are lagging the market.

PS: I won't be complaining if the stocks price is stagnant, while getting 6% annually.

Yup, thank you for concurring with my views bro. You provided an extended explanation of what I have in mind. Couldn't have agreed more
I wouldn't mind too if I could keep getting 6% yield (or possibly higher yield if I could lower down my average cost)

Tough luck for them if they buy at RM10. Someone even bought at RM10.80 last year. Right after GE.. But that's the stock market for u. Entry n exit points are the next most important thing after stock selection.

In my case, I exited completely KLSE stocks after GE. This year started go back into stocks. First into Reits early in year. When index fell to 1600 last month, that's a signal for me to look into blue chip dividend stocks.

I don't understand how e-wallet will replace banks.
Banks give credit and that's something e-wallet can never do.
Banks can also venture into e-wallet. CIMB owns part of TnG and TnG has it's e-wallet.

Banks might close some physical branches. This might improve profitability through reduced expenses. But banks will never close all branches because some customers need to be physically there to sign documents or prefer traditional banking. There are some customers today who don't trust online banking.

if u feel it's worth then just go by batch..

if up. u profit. down lower.. then buy another batch to average down 

RM8 baru 10% loss from current price. That's nothing..

Try..

RM7.50 (lowest 5 year price, in 2016)

Rm3. 44 (lowest 10 year price, during Global Financial crisis 2009)

RM1.50 (lowest ever, Asian Financial crisis in 1998).

Baru takut... 😅

But Maybank has always rebounded back to RM10+.. So far at least. N always resumed to pay good dividends, after short hiccup.

Buy when people takut, sell when people greedy

Can start to top up if price touch 8.80 (which is very possible with the current situation).
Been waiting eagerly for way too long

Damn, I didn't call my remisier to help me queue at 8.80! The support at 8.82 and 8.83 was quite strong in the morning. Stayed at KPJ for the whole day for follow up with doctor after lunch, so missed the 8.80 intraday

Hope tomorrow got chance to buy in some at 8.80, this time I will queue from morning, no more waiting

Anyone of you got it at 8.80 today?

Hi Yggdrasil,

I also looked at CIMB as it seems cheap on paper.

My take is I can't find what's compelling about CIMB though - it seems to me they over-expanded with very little to show for it... a bit all over the place. To borrow from Taleb, Banking is a Extremistan industry, where the big grow bigger. There's very little point being No. 8 in Thailand, for example.

CIMB's ROE is also very low, and has high bad loan formation... My short take is CIMB lacks discipline. They've promised a lot, but the delivery is really lethargic.

I like Maybank for its Islamic segment, mostly. Etiqa could be a nice wildcard bonus. What I don't like is the continuous share dilution with its DRP.

Other than Maybank, I have BIMB on my radar as well - again, Islamic is growing very strongly and has high efficiency and low bad loan formation - perhaps the threat of hellfire is very effective.

What's going on btw? Why is it in such a bad downtrend?

I believe it is the common fear that BNM would be cutting interest rates further down. All banks were affected. We'll just have to wait for BNM's announcement to calm the market.

Any decisions out from the FOMC meeting will not affect of our economy as we are independent. If there is any movement in our stock market due to their decisions, it will just be a short-term reaction to the movement in NYSE. While generally traders could accept a small cut in interest rate, but a bigger than expected cut would send jitters into the financial markets. Again, any interest rate movement in US will not affect the profitability of our local banks in a big way. We are more concerned about our own OPR which will have direct effect on the margin of our banks.

Just bought Takaful today but lost money I think it's because they didn't give dividend (not sure why).

RIP Banking stocks tomorrow morning.
Trump forcing more rate cut.