Opportunities in quality growth leaders: China and Asia Innovative TechnologyThe world has been put to significant challenges and changes by COVID-19, which redefined economic growth and investment opportunities for investors.After winning the HKEx 2019 Top Performing ETF award with 45.2% return, the Premia New Economy ETF continued to be the rare strategy that scored strong positive YTD performance. What drives the resilience?Rather than just IT and internet, China New Economy and the sister version in Asia Innovative Technology sector leaders cover the major beneficiaries as megatrends opportunities in Urbanisation, Rising middle income class, Consumption upgrade, Aging population and rising need for healthcare, digital transformation in both To-C and To-B space, and technology enabled industrialisation 4.0 unfold.In this presentation, we discussed the two ETF strategies that aim to better capture the emerging growth markets and emerging growth sectors in China and Asia.

Jun 26, 2020

For Premia CSI Caixin China Bedrock Economy ETF (2803.HK), there were 90 changes among the underlying index constituents during the latest rebalancing in June.  The one-way turnover ratio was 33.5%, in line with the historical range between 30% and 40%.  The value factor continued to work well with the ETF becoming more attractive in terms of valuation by replacing overvalued stocks with undervalued one.  The forward price-to-earnings ratio dropped from 8.1x to 6.3x whilst the price-to-book ratio remained at 1.1x.  The quality factor also functioned as designed with both return-on-equity ratio and profit margin increased post-rebalancing.  The former rose from 8.9% to 9.7% and the latter increased from 11.3% to 13.6%, reflecting the current stock pool is healthier in financials and stronger in profitability.  In addition, the low-volatility screen did help reduce the portfolio’s risk, as shown by the volatility falling from 29.5% to 28.9%.  Last but not least, the index’s revenue rose from RMB 19.1 billion to RMB 21.1 billion, capturing the mainstream economy of China. Overall the post rebalancing portfolio represents a basket of constituents with better resilience during the COVID and US China tension induced market growth, with cheaper valuaton, higher ROE, higher profitability, strong debt coverage and lower volatility.From a sector perspective, the major change was reducing exposure in Consumer Discretionary and Industrials, and increasing weights in Financials, Real Estate and Utilities.  Drilling down into sub-segments, the additions in Financials are mostly leading banks with attractive valuation, while the deletions in Consumer Discretionary are mostly automobiles related given the challenged fundamentals for the sector.  Notwithstanding the market environment, Chinese banks so far have only been affected mildly by the economic slowdown.  For example, the industry’s return-on-equity fell slightly from 11.7% to 11.0% and NPL ratio edged up from 1.83% to 1.86%.  On a positive note, the net interest margin even surprised on the upside with the number going up from 2.18% to 2.20%. In respect of potential NPL pressure, the additions are also considered with the balancing factor of quality factor, thus focusing banks with robust fundamentals but suppressed valuation during broad market drawdown. Automobile industry was a totally different story with the national sales strinking for the 2nd year in a row.  The total vehicle sales fell by 8.2% to 25.8 million in 2019, after having slid nearly 3% in 2018 in the first contraction since the 1990s.  The slump was exacerbated by weak economic growth, the trade war with the US and tough new emission standards introduced last summer.For Premia CSI Caixin China New Economy ETF (3173.HK) which has continued the strong trajectory and performed well through COVID and after the rebalancing with YTD ~20% return as of Jun 22nd, it had a higher turnover rate compared to the previous rebalances given the evolution of the new economy trends becoming more pronounced since COVID.  There were total 113 replacements, and the one-way turnover was around 45.7%, slightly higher than the historical range of ~40%.  As the index methodology prefers companies with light-asset business model, the consistuents showed a slight increment in non-fixed asset ratio from 0.857 to 0.859 post rebalancing.  In terms of financial health, the updated basket of stocks reflected a higher quality in general with significant improvement seen in the debt coverage (0.86x to 1.71x), return-on-equity (9.7% to 12.6%), and profit margin (14.6% to 17.3%), representing a more robust set of fundamental staying power  for growth given the current market conditions.  In fact, this has also been reflected in the resulting strong growth numbers - the index constituents are expected to grow faster with the estimated revenue growth rising from 9.7% to 15.0% after the resuffle.  A mid-teen growth rate is indeed impressive amid the macro slowdown and the challenigng COVID-19 impact.From a sector point of view, the major change is an increase in Information Technology versus a reduction in Healthcare and Consumer Discretionary. The additions in Information Technology were diversified into semiconductor, software and communications equipment, which align well with the new infrastructure and Industrial IOT development mentioned in our previous research articles.  With the government’s intention to speed up the technolgoical advancement, it is quite rational to see more emerging industry leaders in the capital market.  The latest policy expands the conventional infrastructural investment to encompass digital infrastucture aka #New Infrastructure such as 5G network, data centers, Internet of Things and cloud computing are expected to help groom the local champions.  On the contrary, the deletions in Consumer Discretionary were mainly auto or consumer-electronic related since consumers were reluctant to make big ticket purchases in an uncertain environment.  Besdies, the exports business might also get affected negatively from the rising tensions in global trade.Within Healthcare, the deletions focused on traditional pharmaceuticals which could face more headwinds ahead, in particular for the companies which produce generic drugs.  Beijing has been pushing forward a system that requires drugmakers to go through a bidding process and cut prices low enough to be considered over generic copies if they want to sell their products at public hospitals via large-volume government procurement.For Premia Asia Innovative Technology ETF (3181.HK), there were 8 changes out of 50 stocks if excluding Alibaba which switches from the ADR to the shares listed in Hong Kong, due to its re-classification of the primary listing from the US to Hong Kong. Also, each stock is re-scaled back to an equal weight of 2% in the portfolio, following a rebalancing discipline of profit-taking and buying on dip. Among the 8 inclusions, there are 5 Chinese companies, 2 Japanese companies and 1 Korean company covering themes including new infrastructure, media & web services, biopharmaceutical and semiconductors. Only Chinese and Japanese companies are in the deletion list, in which their businesses are mainly related to media & web services, robotics & automation and industry 4.0. Most of the changes in the index were driven by whether the company’s market cap can reach or fall out from the top 50 in the universe.Similar to China New Economy, the post-rebalance portfolio reflects also a basket that resonates well in the COVID/ post-COVID world, where a lot of behavioural changes YTD become permanent phenomena. In terms of sector, although Technology remains the major components, there are some adjustments to the composition reflecting the impacts from the YTD environment. It has shifted some of its weightings from “electronic equipments and hardwares” to “new infrastructure and semiconductors”.  The reduction in the former might be partly due to the shift in global supply chain as some multinational corporations have been moving manufacturing bases to the low-cost countries such as Vietnam and Indonesia.  The increase in the latter was probablay a result of the policy direction in promoting the domestic competitiveness in technology.  Certainly, the stimulus plan in allocating more resources in new infrastructrure also helps the stock performance.  For the rest of other sectors like Healthcare, Consumer and Industrials, their respective weightings stayed around the same. The outcome is a diversified basket of innovative technology-enabled leaders across various growth themes, and across currently China, Japan, Korea and Taiwan. Rather than high growth small cap companies or illiquid private companies, these are sector leaders with proven track record, R&D and growth fundamentals, and thus provide a more liquid exposure to the more resilient innovative technology players well positioned to capture the emerging megatrends including consumer and enterprise digital transformation, healthcare/ biotech/ pharmaceutical, and AI, 5G, robotics and industrial automations.

Jun 24, 2020

Although the US Dollar Index DXY is likely to pick up a bit more in coming weeks if equities weaken, the longer-term outlook for the Greenback beyond the acute phase of COVID-19 is bleak.

Jun 23, 2020

In crisis times like the current COVID scenario, when many stocks are at multi-year lows and finding opportunities seems to be challenging, our Premia Asia Innovative Technology strategy has proved to be among the most resilient large-cap thematic strategies that has rebounded well above the pre-COVID level with a YTD return of 7.1% (as of 6/12/2020) while also recently hitting an impressive record-high since its inception in August 2018. In this piece, we decipher for you this strategy’s exposures and why it is (more) relevant to investors, particularly post-COVID.

Jun 18, 2020

本期財新國際圓桌主題為“抗擊新冠疫情：政策分析與實踐經驗”，會議包含宏觀解讀與實踐分析兩方面內容，主要結合新冠疫情背景下各國政策與復工復產經驗。

Jun 15, 2020

As cyclical movements would revert and short-term volatility hikes would calm, long-term strategic investors often look out for overarching secular or structural trends. Yet by definition, structural shifts and new innovations often take time. However, there can be catalysts! Witnessing a black swan can be a crisis, but like Winston Churchill advised – let’s not waste a crisis. So where do we look for growth opportunities?

Jun 12, 2020

The Two Sessions are always of interest to the market for the key economic policies unveiled by Chinese leaders. At this year’s Two Sessions, China decided not to set a GDP growth target for the first time in decades, raised the budget deficit ratio above a long-held “red line,” issued special treasury bonds for the first time in the last 2 decades, and rolled out a host of measures to buoy employment and support economic recovery from Covid-19.

Jun 10, 2020

隨著聯網汽車和智能家電等消費領域的應用日益普及，物聯網（IoT，Internet of Things）已逐漸為人所熟知。而在工業領域，正如我們一再強調與關注的話題——企業數位化轉型將重寫產業遊戲規則，而工業互聯網（IIoT，Industrial IoT）正是其中的重要環節。事實上，工業互聯網即是「中國新基建」七大重點投資領域之一，受到中國官方政策的大力支持。所以，工業互聯網是甚麼？為何其中的行業領導者在疫情期間更具彈性？在本篇文章中，我們將分享工業互聯網的概念，以及該領域的發展進程和投資機會。

May 26, 2020

Given the trade tensions and looming risks of de-globalisation, it is likely that China will embark on a different growth path in the aftermath of COVID, and increasingly rely on domestic demand to drive growth. This structural shift holds significant implications for EM Asia. In fact, ASEAN replaced the European Union as China’s biggest trading partner in 1Q20. In this webinar, our co-CIO David Lai shares our research and insights on investing into ASEAN markets in light of the late COVID crisis, re-escalating US-China trade dispute and more importantly the gradual global supply chain reconfiguration.

May 26, 2020