It was challenging for global investors to find a market that could offer a positive return in 2022. China market can’t escape from the selloff, with H-shares, A-shares and ADRs down by 20% to 29% in dollar return in the first eleven months of the year. The market turnover was shrinking whilst foreign investors were net selling. Internally, the frequent COVID-lockdowns, a property market slump, an ongoing Internet scrutiny, and the deteriorating bilateral relationship between China and the US all contributed to the bearish sentiment in Chinese equities. Externally, the Ukraine-Russia war, high inflationary pressure, an accelerated rate hike cycle, and strengthening dollar have further weakened investors’ confidence towards risky assets.

Dec 06, 2022

In a discordant world, there are no overarching investment themes. The different parts of the world are marching to different drums – their economies and markets are driven by different cycles, different prior policy choices and factors beyond their control. The US economy and market are paying back for the extreme policy stimulus of 2020-2021. Europeans are paying back for the same, with the added pain of a war outside their control. Japan is battling a chronic ailment – extreme debt – made acute by sharply higher cost of US funds. China is at the bottom of its policy cycle, at the beginning of a path out of COVID health controls.

Dec 05, 2022

After finishing Q2 as the only emerging market in positive territory, the effects of zero-COVID policy, a continued slump in the property market, and weakening global demand pushed Chinese stocks to the bottom of the EM index in Q3. The CSI 300 Index dropped by -14.3% over the three months from July to September 2022. Below, we offer deeper insights into third-quarter performance—including some bright spots among state-owned enterprises and technology with a policy tailwind—along with our thinking on October’s National Congress and what the rest of the year might have in store.

Oct 31, 2022

Unlike in developed markets, healthcare is actually a growing “new economy” sector in China that offers tremendous opportunities for global investors. As the Chinese economy evolves, the sector also enjoys fundamental tailwinds such as rising demand for healthcare and wellness services as living standards improve, and an aging population with low birth rates. Meanwhile being a growth sector with public interest concerns that is also popular among retail investors, the healthcare sector also experiences volatility swings and regulation tailwinds from time to time such that taking a diversified approach with consideration for fundamentals may be more optimal. In this article, we would take a closer look at the various underlying sub-segments, review their characteristics and also highlight some of the leading A-share companies driving the growth opportunities in their respective space.

Sep 20, 2022

If the KOLs (key opinion leaders) have stormed the world with livestreaming and short videos globally in recent years, the metaverse is bringing on a new cohort of KOLs across Asia – virtual influencers. In fact, Asia is already seeing very rapid growth of virtual influencers, given the high internet penetration, digital economy and demographic tailwinds across the region. From Korea, China, Japan to Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand, brands and marketers across industries are increasingly ready to adopt and experiment, especially those targeting young consumers. In fact according to Jing Daily estimates, of the 80% of Chinese netizens following online celebrities, over 60% follow virtual idols and over half spending at least RMB500 a month on related purchases. Virtual KOLs also are said to often have interaction rates three times higher than their real counterparts. In this article, we shall share more about this coming of age of virtual influencers in Asia, with a deeper dive into the observations in Korea where the virtual influencers are bringing important new elements to the K-pop industry.

Sep 09, 2022

Sichuan has a very real climate change issue to manage this year. After extreme heatwave and drought causing power rationing for industrial users for two weeks, the province is now quickly re-gearing for Level IV flood emergency alert. While most factories are able to resume production now, should we be concerned especially with memories from the power crunch actions last year? What would be the impacts and ripple effects we should pay attention to? In this article we reviewed the background triggering the Sichuan situation, and why we believe the power rationing events are more pre-emptive in nature and energy security is very carefully managed in the planned economy of China.

Aug 31, 2022

Global markets have been subject to higher volatility so far in 2022 amid escalating inflation and recession risks. The US rate hike cycle has added further pressure to the dollar return of most foreign-currency-denominated assets due to the strengthening dollar. In this article, we describe the genesis behind the recent addition of USD hedged unit class to our Premia China Treasury and Policy Bank Bond Long Duration ETF (9177.HK), which is the first among peers to offer USD hedging feature in Asia. For investors that are mindful of mark to market risk amid continued US interest rate hikes, as well asset owners with long duration allocation needs, the Premia China Treasury and Policy Bank Bond Long Duration ETF is a unique tool that provides access to the long duration Chinese government and policy bank bonds with strong A1 sovereign bond rating, competitive yield of over 3%, stable yield volatility and now with the USD hedged unit class, additional optionality to capture the steady yield of China sovereign bonds whilst minimizing exchange rate risks for RMB.

Aug 18, 2022

Notwithstanding the cautious sentiment towards Chinese equities over the past year, the fundamentals suggest that it would be increasingly difficult to ignore Chinese equities as its economic heft and importance continues to grow. In this article, our Senior Advisor Say Boon Lim analyzes the fundamentals of the Chinese economy and why it makes sense for global allocators to deploy Chinese equities for diversification and growth opportunities as the alternative would be a deliberate underweight decision for a large part of the world's GDP and the key driver for global productivity growth.

Aug 11, 2022

After lithium, coal and pork, polysilicon appears to be the next in line for potential government price interventions. In fact, polysilicon prices which have been on nine consecutive weeks of spiking spree, have reached 10-year high and the high prices have caused severe supply chain disruptions and suppressed domestic demand for solar panels – and in the process slow down the solar infrastructure build out in China. Such price intervention thus is envisaged to be a positive regulating event, that would shift the industry dynamics from upstream biased to more midstream and downstream actors, to rebalance the supply chain economics for long run sustainable growth of the industry ecosystem. In this article, we shall analyze this in greater details, and explain why despite the headline concerns it would be a positive event for the sector leaders including related constituents in the Premia ETFs, while the polysilicon market is expected to remain tight throughout the year due to persistent strong global demand and supply shortages.

Aug 04, 2022