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.

The macroeconomic landscape is shifting rapidly, driving a brutal global bond selloff that has pushed yields to nearly two-decade highs. Rising oil prices and firmer-than-expected July PCE data—featuring a rebound in core goods that points to underlying inflation of around 3%—are reigniting inflation concerns. This has triggered a retreat across sovereign debt markets, from Japan and Australia to US Treasuries, where the 10-year yield recently hit its highest level since January of last year. Against this backdrop, monetary policy is becoming a source of volatility rather than clarity. While Fed Chair Kevin Warsh delivered a hawkish message at Jackson Hole hinting at potential rate hikes, bond investors remain deeply skeptical. Given Warsh’s history of mixed signals, markets are actively hedging against the risk that the Fed ultimately keeps rates steady. Compounding this policy uncertainty is a resurgence in equity turbulence driven by protectionist trade measures, including impending semiconductor tariffs and bans on foreign energy grid equipment. This volatile combination of unpredictable central bank action, equity turbulence, and a severe selloff at the long end of the yield curve makes the stability of Floating Rate Notes (FRNs) exceptionally appealing. FRNs structurally insulate portfolios from the duration risk currently punishing traditional bonds, while retaining the flexibility to capture higher yields if the Fed does hike. Even if rates simply remain steady, FRNs provide a reliable, premium income stream. For efficient, liquid access to this defensive strategy, the Premia US Treasury Floating ETF (available in Distributing and Accumulating Unit Classes) offers a targeted solution to navigate today's complex market dynamics.

Taiwan equities have almost fully recovered from July’s sharp selloff and are on track to challenge new highs as the global AI trade regains momentum. Foreign investors turned net buyers during the first 10 trading days of August, accumulating USD1.7bn, reflecting renewed confidence in Taiwan’s technology-led growth outlook. With the market’s leading technology companies continuing to deliver strong earnings and benefiting from sustained AI investment, Taiwan remains well positioned to participate in the next leg of the global AI upcycle. TSMC reported a 45% year-on-year increase in monthly sales, underscoring resilient AI hardware demand despite market volatility. The global chipmaking leader also raised its full-year capital spending and revenue projections, reflecting confidence that robust demand for AI chips will extend into 2027 and beyond. MediaTek’s 2026 outlook has strengthened following robust 2Q results, with structural growth drivers broadening from premiumization to diversification. A richer high-end smartphone mix and growing demand for custom AI silicon could help reaccelerate sales growth in 2027–28. Delta Electronics reported a 47.7% jump in July sales, driven by rising demand for server-related power-supply products. Increasing AI server power consumption, higher efficiency requirements and the shift toward higher-density racks should sustain demand for advanced power solutions, raising Delta’s content per rack and improving revenue quality. ASE Technology also reported 43.2% growth in July revenue, supported by rapid expansion in advanced chip packaging. Its Fan-Out Chip-on-Substrate technology, which connects chips without requiring a large silicon interposer, offers an attractive performance-to-cost proposition versus TSMC’s interposer-based CoWoS. For investors seeking broad exposure to Taiwan’s technology supply chain, the Premia FTSE TWSE Taiwan 50 ETF offers a useful vehicle. Its underlying index provides diversified exposure to Taiwan’s 50 largest companies and has outperformed major Taiwan equity benchmarks year-to-date, offering investors a broad-based way to participate in the continued expansion of the AI ecosystem.

China A-share market has become increasingly polarized, as earnings momentum and growth expectations drove investor flows. While the Information Technology sector has surged 31.9% year-to-date, Consumer Staples have declined 13.8%, illustrating a clear market preference for growth-oriented industries over traditional defensives. The strength of the technology sector is often attributed to the global enthusiasm surrounding artificial intelligence and semiconductor demand, alongside Beijing’s continued support for domestic innovation and import substitution in critical technologies. However, the rally is far from being purely sentiment driven. Corporate fundamentals have provided substantial support. In the first quarter of 2026, Information Technology companies delivered earnings growth of 68.0% year-on-year, second only to Materials at 74.8%. In contrast, Consumer Staples reported a 15.4% earnings decline, reflecting weaker operating momentum. The earnings divergence has also been reinforced by analyst revisions, with full-year profit estimates for Information Technology revised upward by 7.4%, while Consumer Staples experienced a sharp 19.3% downgrade. Looking ahead, earnings growth is expected to remain concentrated in a handful of high-growth sectors. Consensus forecasts point to full-year 2026 earnings growth of 72.0% for Materials, 70.6% for Information Technology, 33.7% for Industrials, and 30.8% for Healthcare, while Utilities, Financials and Consumer Staples are expected to lag. For investors seeking exposure to China’s structural growth themes, the Premia China STAR50 ETF and Premia China New Economy ETF offer targeted access to innovative and high-growth segments of the market, both of which have outperformed the broader A-share market year-to-date.

China government bonds have quietly emerged as one of the strongest-performing major sovereign bond markets year-to-date, standing in sharp contrast to the losses seen across most developed and emerging market fixed-income assets. While elevated crude oil prices and geopolitical tensions have reignited global inflation concerns, bond markets in the US, Europe, Japan, and several emerging economies have come under pressure as investors increasingly price in the risk of further policy tightening. US Treasury yields, in particular, have risen sharply amid growing expectations that the Federal Reserve may need to resume rate hikes by the end of this year, with other central banks potentially following suit to contain inflationary pressures. China, however, presents a very different macro and policy backdrop. While expectations for near-term rate cuts by the People’s Bank of China have faded alongside improving domestic growth, policymakers are likewise not expected to move toward tightening. The PBOC continues to maintain a supportive and “moderately loose” policy stance, while China’s inflation pressures remain relatively contained. This divergence has reinforced the defensive characteristics of China government and policy bank bonds, which continue to provide stability and steady returns while many global bond markets face ongoing capital loss risks. For institutional investors seeking duration exposure with lower inflation sensitivity and reduced tightening risk, the Premia China Treasury and Policy Bank Bond Long Duration ETF offers efficient access to one of the few major sovereign bond markets still benefiting from a supportive monetary environment.

Taiwan’s economy continues to demonstrate exceptional strength, supported by its increasingly indispensable role in the global AI supply chain. First-quarter GDP expanded 13.69% year-on-year, marking the fastest pace of growth since 1987. The upside surprise was driven primarily by robust external demand, as exports surged on the back of accelerating global investment in AI infrastructure, semiconductors, and high-performance computing. Electronic components and ICT products accounted for nearly 80% of total outbound shipments, reinforcing Taiwan’s position at the center of next-generation technology manufacturing. The strength of the export cycle is also translating into broader domestic economic momentum. Technology companies continue to expand capacity and increase R&D spending to capture long-term AI opportunities, supporting manufacturing activity and capital formation. Meanwhile, buoyant equity market turnover and increased participation in investment products have provided an additional tailwind for Taiwan’s financial sector. With global AI capital expenditure expected to maintain a strong multi-year growth trajectory through the end of the decade, Taiwan remains structurally well-positioned to benefit from rising demand across the semiconductor and advanced electronics ecosystem. Against this backdrop, Taiwan equities should continue to enjoy strong medium-term earnings support and investor interest. For investors seeking efficient exposure to Taiwan’s leading technology champions, including TSMC, MediaTek, Delta Electronics, and ASE Technology, the Premia FTSE TWSE Taiwan 50 ETF offers a focused and liquid vehicle to access Taiwan’s AI-driven growth story.

Chinese new economy stocks, led by battery and semiconductor names, have reclaimed the outperformance against the broader market year-to-date, shrugging off ongoing US-Iran geopolitical noise. This resilience is underpinned by a combination of macroeconomic reflation, structural policy support, and accelerated technological self-reliance. On the macro front, China has officially exited factory deflation after more than three years. This is a critical inflection point: Goldman Sachs research shows that equities perform best when growth stabilizes alongside steadily rising inflation, with a concurrent PPI rate in the 0-4% range generating the highest historical returns across 1- to 12-month horizons. This reflationary tailwind is being amplified by targeted sector developments. In the battery and renewable space, the government summoned 16 leading manufacturers to restrict unchecked capacity expansion and curb price wars. Furthermore, the NDR’s new Order No. 41 raises thresholds for energy storage stations. Together, these moves force the industry to transition from “scale expansion” to “high-quality development”, directly benefiting top-tier power equipment and ESS producers. Simultaneously, the push for semiconductor self-reliance is accelerating. Reports indicate that DeepSeek’s highly anticipated V4 model will run on Huawei AI chips instead of Nvidia GPUs–a massive endorsement of domestic AI infrastructure that sparked a rally in local names like Cambricon. Should this reflationary momentum continue, new economy stocks are positioned to widen their outperformance gap. Investors forced on upstream hardware can capture this through our Premia China STAR50 ETF. For a broader play on this innovative growth story–spanning semiconductors, AI, EVs, and biotech–our Premia CSI Caixin China New Economy ETF offers an optimal, diversified approach.

While Chinese new economy stocks have faced short-term volatility amid the geopolitical tensions, their long-term growth remains anchored by strategic policy and industry breakthroughs. The 15th Five Year Plan underlines that technology and self-sufficiency still come first, backed by a strong push for AI and digital infrastructure.  The blueprint mentioned "AI" more than 50 times and included major action plans to deploy AI agents and increase investment in quantum computing and 6G. On the hardware front, sources indicate SMIC (688981 CH) and other Huawei-linked chipmakers are aiming to ramp up production of 7nm or 5nm semiconductors to 100K wafers in 1-2 years to support domestic developers. This domestic ecosystem is already bearing fruit: Zhipu AI released its GLM-5 model with superior coding capabilities, notably confirming the model was developed using domestic chips from Huawei, Moore Threads, and Cambricon. On the software side, adoption is accelerating. OpenClaw has sparked a new trend pivoting from “Chat AI” to “Execution AI”, reminding investors of the DeepSeek moment in 2022. Chinese AI companies act swiftly to adopt the trend, making China a leader in consumer AI adoption. Multiple developers like Tencent and Xiaomi are linking OpenClaw to their models. Even before this new trend, local media have reported that Chinese AI models’ weekly token usage surpassed US peers, suggesting that monetization may arrive earlier than expected. Investors focused on hardware semiconductors could consider our Premia China STAR50 ETF. For broader exposure, our Premia CSI Caixin China New Economy ETF offers a diversified approach with investments in semiconductors, AI, EV, and Biotech, allowing investors to participate in China’s innovative growth story. For even broader Asia exposure, investors might consider our Premia Asia Innovative Technology and Metaverse Theme ETF, which invests in Asia's 50 largest innovative companies across sectors such as AI, semiconductors, solar energy, and EVs with equal weightings.

Taiwan's economic outlook is experiencing a significant uplift, driven by the burgeoning AI revolution and a recently cemented trade pact with the US. Economic growth forecasts for this year have been upgraded to an impressive 7.7%, a substantial increase from the 3.5% projection made in November. This revised outlook anticipates Taiwan's GDP reaching an unprecedented USD1tn, marking a historic achievement for the island. Fueling this robust growth is an expected surge in exports, now projected to rise by 22.2% in 2026, a sharp acceleration from the earlier 6.3% forecast. These positive revisions reflect a broad consensus among financial institutions, with Bank of America nearly doubling its growth prediction due to "relentless global demand" for Taiwan's advanced tech hardware, including critical AI chips and servers. The enhanced capital expenditures by cloud providers, exceeding initial expectations, further underscore the formidable strength of AI-related infrastructure. The strategic trade agreement finalized between the US and Taiwan earlier this month is a pivotal catalyst, set to reduce average tariff rates on Taiwanese exports to the US from nearly 36% to ~12%. This landmark deal, hailed as a shift from "defense to offense" by Taiwan Premier Cho Jung-tai, will cement Taiwan’s position as an economic powerhouse. The tangible impact of these developments is already visible in Taiwan's equities market, which has seen remarkable performance. The stock market has advanced by at least 25% for three consecutive years, with a further ~15% gain to a new record in 2026 alone. For institutional investors looking to capitalize on this strong structural uptrend in Taiwan equities, the Premia FTSE TWSE Taiwan 50 ETF presents an optimal and strategic investment vehicle to capture this solid growth story.

The immediate threat of a US-EU trade war has subsided with President Trump’s sudden reversal on tariffs, but the underlying tensions remain unresolved. Denmark has already denied the existence of any deal to cede Greenland, suggesting this reprieve may be temporary. This constant policy whiplash reinforces the view of major institutional investors like AkademikerPension that US Treasuries are increasingly fraught with headline risk. As their CIO notes, the 'massive credit risk' posed by US governance issues means investors must look beyond the immediate news cycle and plan for a future where US assets are no longer the sole definition of safety. This environment validates the case for Asia Investment Grade (IG) as a superior alternative. The asset class is not only shielded from Western political brinkmanship but is also undergoing a positive transformation. We are seeing a healthy diversification in issuers, highlighted by Kuaishou Technology entering the market to fund its AI ambitions. This signals that Asia IG is evolving from traditional sectors into a dynamic, tech-forward asset class. For investors seeking stability without sacrificing growth, the Premia J.P. Morgan Asia Credit Investment Grade Bond ETF offers diversified exposure to these solid sovereign and corporate credits, serving as a prudent hedge against the unpredictable winds of Washington."