featured insights & webinar
Little speculative manias are bubbling up to the surface in the US markets. But while financial instability is growing in the United States as a result of aggressive monetary expansion, a collapse in the equities market does not appear imminent given tame inflation and ultra-low rates and yields.
Feb 16, 2021
The only major economy to grow in 2020. China has turned adversity from the COVID-19 pandemic into the best growth performance in the world for 2020.
Jan 27, 2021
According to the United Nation Environment Programme, an inclusive green economy is an alternative to today's dominant economic model, which exacerbates inequalities, encourages waste, triggers resource scarcities, and generates widespread threats to the environment and human health.
Jan 22, 2021
The US Federal Reserve pumps out an endless stream of zero interest rate money to finance the Government’s deficit spending. The handouts make most American workers better off financially during the pandemic than before. Meanwhile, the stock market soars. Not bad for the worst pandemic in 100 years. What can possibly go wrong?
Jan 20, 2021
We see the need to evolve from conventional geography centric or factor-based asset allocation models to sector and megatrend-minded models to capture secular alpha from structural changes.
Jan 13, 2021
The red-hot performers of the past 12 months have been the broad market indices from North Asia – Kospi (44%), CSI 300 (34%), TWSE (30%)
Jan 12, 2021
Where to find growth and position for a fresh start in 2021 as we navigate through COVID recovery and geopolitical tensions? In this webinar, our co-CIO David Lai discussed with our colleague Larry Kwok on key growth markets and growth sectors in Asia, how one could capture such megatrend-driven secular alpha efficiently via Premia strategies, and also some common topics of interest under the recent market environment.
Jan 04, 2021
Outperformer from first news of successful vaccines. Emerging ASEAN has been one of the best performers among major global equity indices since the start of November. And that was likely due to the region’s high economic leverage to normalisation after the distribution of COVID-19 vaccines and its high trend GDP growth rates relative to other Emerging Market economies.
Dec 24, 2020
Global equities look likely to push higher in 2021, despite the pandemic’s economic and human toll.
Dec 23, 2020
To summarize the year of 2020, the opening lines from Charles Dicken’s A Tale of twin cities sounds like an accurate description. It was certainly the best of times and the worst of times. Global equities have been doing reasonably well with developed market up by 12.0% and emerging market up by 11.7%. Fixed income managed to gain by 7.4% whilst gold price was up by 19.1%. On the other hand, real economy has been suffering from the pandemic with almost all major economies getting into recession. International Monetary Fund sees the world would contract by 4.4% in total output, the worst crisis since the 1930s Great Depression with -5.8% among advanced economies and -3.3% on developing countries.
Dec 02, 2020
BY TOPICS
Chart Of the Week
Michael Ng
China property USD bonds have extended gains through the third quarter, with the Premia China USD Property Bond ETF (3001/9001 HK) up more than 20% year to date. On 28 August, Beijing announced the most significant overhaul of China's housing sales and financing framework in three decades. It works through four channels:Sales milestones reset. MOHURD, MNR and NFRA now require a building to be structurally topped out before presales can begin, with 100% of purchase funds — down payments and mortgage proceeds — held in supervised escrow until completion and delivery.Lead-bank oversight. Designated banks supervise project financing, escrow and construction progress end to end, and a homebuyer's mortgage is now issued only after the project is completed.Longer mortgage tenors. The PBOC lifted the maximum personal mortgage tenor from 30 to 40 years.Wider capital-market access. The CSRC broadened refinancing and M&A channels, alongside expanded REIT, CMBS and ABS support for income-producing assets.While the near-term read is negative for developers - replacing presale proceeds with borrowing implies higher leverage and more secured debt, which can subordinate existing senior claims - that argues for selection rather than avoidance. The Premia China USD Property Bond ETF (3001 / 9001 HK) holds secured and senior unsecured paper only, and excludes subordinated debt and LGFVs, favouring issuers with recurring rental income and the securitisation access the CSRC has just widened. Over the medium to long term, the reform should reduce the risk of another property-sector shock. Delivery risk moves off household prepayments and into bank-supervised project finance, lowering the odds of a repeat of the unfinished-project stress that drove the last default wave, while tighter new-home supply supports the clearing of existing inventory. Meanwhile, banks are being capitalised to carry that risk: Beijing announced a further RMB360bn (US$54bn) injection into eight state financial institutions on 6 September, of which RMB290bn (US$43.2bn) went to lenders. Brokers expect developer equities to stay soft unless policy surprises or sales data improve. Bonds answer a different question: not whether growth returns, but whether issuers keep paying. The ETF yields around 12.9% (as of Sep 8, 2026), well above the broader Asia high yield market - the extra income investors are paid for the risk that some issuers still restructure or default while the transition plays out.
Sep 10, 2026
