Emerging ASEAN is one of the most compelling investment stories of 2024 – offering what is now an uncommon combination of growth and undervaluation. Having come to the end of its rate hiking cycle, with economic growth very much intact, Emerging ASEAN now benefits from tailwinds from a cyclical transition to stimulus amidst solid structural growth fundamentals. Vietnam in particular moved early and decisively in 2023 towards stimulus and its market is now favourably positioned with a PE to 2-year earnings CAGR ratio of only 0.36. In this article our Senior Advisor Say Boon Lim and Portfolio Manager Alex Chu discuss more about the fundamental growth drivers for this under-covered region, and how the end of the US rate hike cycle and the current valuation offer attractive opportunities for global and emerging markets allocators looking for uncorrelated alpha.

While many other economies have bounced back to trend growth, the latest IMF forecast shows that collectively the Emerging ASEAN-5 will likely have the strongest growth outlook among the major market/regional groupings. The IMF forecasts suggest that Emerging ASEAN-5 will likely grow its collective nominal GDP by 56% between 2022 and 2028, and will grow its nominal GDP from 72% of Japan’s GDP in 2022 to 92% by 2028. Their expected gain will be way ahead of those estimated for the Developed Market economies of the US, Euro Area and Japan. In this article, our Senior Advisor Say Boon Lim discusses the growth trajectory and drivers for opportunities in ASEAN, and why ASEAN is well placed to gain alpha while US is entering its final phase of the rate hike cycle.