China Bedrock Economy

Most asset classes did not perform well so far this year amid the rising interest rate environment and the Ukraine-Russia conflict, e.g., -12.8% in developed market equities, -10.1% in emerging market equities, -4.0% in global bonds, -29.1% in cryptocurrencies. The only exception was commodity, which went up over 32% year-to-date. Crude oil prices keep getting higher with no sign of a pullback in near-term, leading to a mounting inflation pressure to the global economic recovery. Investors are now thinking hard to reallocate their assets and shift away from the risky exposure. Riding the commodity rally by increasing the position in oil or gold may be one of the options, but the usual high volatility and negative carry are always the obstacles for placing any significant bets.

2021 has been a challenging year for many, with significant divergence within the Chinese equities universe and frequent growth/ value factor rotations through each quarter. We had also experienced regulatory and policy headwind and tailwind that drove significant market movements. Since the end of 2021, China’s equity market has experienced correction which has brought valuation back to attractive level. Both our Premia CSI Caixin China New Economy ETF (3173 HK) and Premia China Bedrock Economy ETF (2803 HK) continue to provide effective diversification tools to global investors and we illustrate a 50/50 blended portfolio that would outperform the broader market and its peers consistently.

[Watch Now]The US Federal Reserve has signalled the imminent start of the transition from the Great Stimulus of 2020-2021 to policy tightening with rate hikes and tapering at a suggested pace that was at the high end of previous expectations. On the contrary as we kickstarted 2022, China has cut rates and it is expected that more easing measures would be introduced. Meanwhile foreign investors have also shown unprecedented appetite for Chinese government bonds as foreign holdings surged from less than 3% in 2016 to 10.8% at the end of 2021. Would this continue? What would be the outlook? What are the tailwind and headwind factors to consider for investors and asset allocators? Data & Venue23 Feb 2022, Hong Kong Opening RemarksPhoebe Leung, Senior Vice President, Head of Sales & Marketing, Bond Connect Company Limited Panel Discussion - CGB and RMB - 2022 Outlook and Allocation StrategyTracy Yeung, Assistant Vice President, Sales & Marketing, Bond Connect Company Limited (Moderator)Laura Lui, Partner & Co-CIO, Premia Partners Company LimitedChun Hong Chan, Partner, Co-Chief Executive Officer, CIO, Multi-Asset Strategies and Head of External Managers, Avanda Investment ManagementEdmund Ng, Founder & Chief Investment Officer, Eastfort Asset ManagementJonas von Oldenskiöld, Head of SwissRe Korea, former head of SwissRe Asset Management Asia Long Duration CGB ETF - Use Cases, Flows, Liquidity and Trading StrategyDavid Lai, Partner & Co-CIO, Premia Partners Co. Ltd.

In the US the “triple peaks” in economic growth, earnings growth and policy stimulus will likely result in much lower returns for US equities in 2022. The persistently high inflation – which will likely run hotter in the US than Europe and Japan – is already causing greater volatility as US equities are put on tenterhooks over the timing and magnitude of rate hikes. Meanwhile US Dollar could weaken on inflation rather than strengthen on higher Treasury yields. On the other hand, Emerging Markets, usually do better during periods of Dollar weakness but this time we could see a new twist - this favours China, supported by easier financial conditions. On top of all these, how is the Omicron Virus going to impact the global markets and what are the implications for global asset allocations in 2022? Why ASEAN would be a good diversification within Emerging Markets? Further to Part 1 of our 2022 outlook piece earlier, in this Part 2 sequel our Senior Advisor Say Boon Lim laid out the scenarios and discussed how we can reposition for the global shifts accordingly to address the transition to tightening and pivot from US equities.

After the smooth sail in 2020, 2021 has been a challenging year for investors with heightened volatility across global markets. Asia Pacific ex-Japan equities, Emerging Asia and in particular China had a good start until mid-February, but then returned all the gains and stayed largely flat on increasing regulatory headwinds in China, extended COVID-lockdowns in southeast Asia, threats of power crunch and credit defaults among Chinese property developers. On the contrary, benchmarks like S&P500, Nasdaq and Euro Stoxx 50 all reached new highs during the year, and Nikkei 225 hit its highest point in three decades. Meanwhile, the divergence in the fixed income markets went the other way, as global fixed income market suffered a mid-single-digit percentage loss in return, while China sovereign bonds bucked the trend with a high-single-digit percentage gain. Where do we go from here? Is the Omicron virus going to reset the path to 2020? And how do we decipher impacts of the Fed tapering, inflation and interest rate expectations, and economic growth and policy trends in China? In this article, our Partner & Co-CIO David Lai assesses the world economics and markets current standings, focusing on China and Asia, and discusses how to reconfigure for new opportunities that arise into 2022 as a year of the new normal.