Consumer spending in China continues to grow strongly by international standards, even as the pattern of that spending evolves. The image of weak consumerism in China – as portrayed by the media – is misleading in two ways. For starters, the growth in retail sales in China is only “low” relative to the very high (mostly double digit) rates recorded in the 2010s. However, at 7.2% y/y growth in the full year 2023, China’s retail sales growth compares very well internationally. Beyond that, there are also changing social trends which are driving different forms of consumption in China, which then support investments that are more reflective of the transformation in China. In this article, we discuss more about how young Chinese are the main driving force in China’s consumer market and identify the winners of this quiet but significant sea change in consumer behaviour.

Investors should expect a better return in Chinese equities in 2024 after three consecutive negative yearly return. Indeed, it is the first time that China stock market has recorded an annual loss three times in a row. Slowing economy, heighted China-US bilateral relationship, strong dollar and property market slump all contributed to the disappointing performance in the past twelve months. Looking ahead, the market may offer more upside risks because of (1) stronger supportive policies rolling out to help lift economic activities and particularly the property sector, (2) geopolitical tensions tuning down with increasing dialogues between Chinese and US top government officials, (3) domestic long-term investors’ buying and foreign investors’ current significantly underweight position in Chinese equities, and (4) value emerging from the discounted share prices on both absolute and relative basis. Bamboo is a symbol of longevity in China because of its durability, strength, flexibility, and resilience. It survives in the harshest conditions, persevere and still standing tall and staying green year-round. When the storm comes, bamboo bends with the wind. With business and consumer confidence continue to recover amid the much more accommodating, easing environment, Chinese entrepreneurs and the equities market should finally be in for a year of promising growth ahead.

The youth unemployment rate in China has been much talked about, however the phenomenon is often poorly interpreted without addressing the important nuances behind the structural, transformational and societal factors in China. In fact, the elevated unemployment rate is a transitional legacy from COVID and many countries also shared the experience of high youth unemployment. There is a lag in China’s youth unemployment data compared to western countries, given China’s relatively late reopening from the COVID pandemic. In this article, we discuss the structural factors contributing to the youth unemployment rate in China, and explain why the number will likely to decline and why the unemployed youth will be absorbed into workforce as China continues on its path of recovery.

과거 투자자들은 중국 주식 소유시 국영기업(SOE)보단 민영기업(POE)을 더 선호했습니다. 보통 민영기업은 더 효율적으로 운영되며 성장·이익·혁신을 추구하는 경향이 있는 반면, 국영기업은 보통 관료주의, 사회적 책임, 고용·사회적 안정 지원, 그리고 변화·혁신과는 거리가 먼 전통적인 사내문화에 얽매인 채 운영된다는 고정관념이 존재했기 때문이다. 그러나 정부의 강력한 지원 뿐만 아니라, 국영기업 개혁을 촉진하고 국영기업들의 가치 발굴을 강조하는 새 정책들이 속속 등장함에 따라, 이제는 이러한 고정관념을 타파할 때가 된 것 같습니다. 변화를 위해 노력하고, 또 진정한 경제 발전에 기여할 수 있도록 재편성되고 새로운 가치를 발견할 수 있게끔 정책 결정자들의 전폭적인 지지를 받는 국영기업들이 새로이 등장하고 있기 때문입니다. 이 글에서는 최근 인기를 끌고 있는 국영기업 리레이팅/가치 재평가 테마의 배경에 대해 논의해볼 것이며, 중국 국영기업 테마에 적절한 익스포져를 갖기 위한 최적의 방법을 소개합니다.

2023년, 투자자들은 경제침체기를 맞게될 서양과 중국의 회복으로 가파른 성장세에 올라탈 동양 사이에 극명한 경제적 차이를 보게 될 것입니다. 2022년, 재개방 반등세를 이미 자체적으로 경험한 ASEAN-5국가들이 내년에는 중국의 재개방 회복세 순풍에 올라탈 것으로 전망됩니다. 이번 논설에서는 ASEAN-5 국가들이2023년 비교적 완만한 인플레와 세계적으로도 가장 높은 수준의 경제성장률을 시현하며 어떻게 스윗스폿(Sweet Spot)을 계속 선점하게 될 지 다뤄볼 예정입니다.

2022년에는 전세계적으로 투자자들이 플러스 수익률을 낼 수 있는 시장을 찾는 것 자체가 어려웠습니다. 중국시장 역시 H주, A주, ADR주 모두 올해 첫 11개월 간 달러 수익률이 20~29%씩 하락하는 등 매도세에서 벗어날 수 없었는데요. 외국인 투자자들의 순매도세가 이어지는 동안 시장 회전율은 감소하였습니다. 중국 내부적으로 잦은 코로나 봉쇄조치, 부동산 시장 침체, 계속되는 빅테크 감시, 미중 관계 악화 등의 요인 모두 중국 증시 약세 기조에 기여했습니다. 대외적으로는 우크라이나-러시아 전쟁, 높은 인플레 압력, 가속화된 금리 인상 주기, 달러 강세 등의 이벤트들로 인해 위험자산에 대한 투자자 신뢰도가 더욱 약화되었습니다.

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.

What will the next era of China’s economy look like? Invest in the leading companies driving China’s New Economy through the Premia CSI Caixin China New Economy ETF.

Chinese equities have been putting on breakouts above technical resistances just as Developed Markets are breaking down and US stocks have been collapsing into bear territory – and this does not seem coincidental. At opposite ends of the policy cycle. At the heart of this may be the policy tightening in the US, the looming consequent recession, and the search for alternatives to US assets – stocks, Treasuries and corporate credits. China’s recent commitments to fiscal and monetary stimulus are a welcome counterpoint to the falling monetary aggregates, surging rates and yields, and fiscal consolidation in the US. In this article, our Senior Advisor Say Boon Lim discussed the significance of onshore A-shares breaking above the technical resistance of 100-day moving average, as it has a tendency to be followed by quite substantial periods of gains.

It’s again time for annual rebalance of our Premia Asia Innovative Technology and Metaverse Theme ETF (3181 HK) as well as our China A-shares ETFs - Premia CSI Caixin China New Economy ETF (3173 HK), Premia CSI Caixin China Bedrock Economy ETF (2803 HK), Premia China STAR50 ETF (3151 HK). The rebalances were successfully completed on Jun 10th 2022, and in this article we highlight the changes made and also provide brief analyses comparing the profiles before and after the rebalance exercise.

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.

The US Federal Reserve has signalled the imminent start of the transition from the Great Stimulus of 2020-2021 to a period with new uncertainties. The Fed’s suggested pace of tapering quantitative easing was at the high end of expectations. In this article our Senior Advisor Say Boon Lim discusses his thoughts on what to expect regarding US inflation rate and 10Y UST yield, and why we need to brace for more challenging US equity and bond markets with lower return and higher risk coming up on the horizon.

The upward momentum of US equities has slowed considerably over the past 16 months, from the explosive initial rebound in late March last year. Our sense is that we would either see small gains in coming months or indeed a correction in the face of the likely peaks in economic growth, earnings growth, and policy stimulus. In this article our Senior Advisor Say Boon Lim discusses why investors in US equities may have to lower their returns expectations for 2H21 in the face of what some are calling the “triple peaks”.

China market saw a material correction due to the regulatory crackdown in the offshore tech and education space. The panic sentiment led to indiscriminative unwinding of Chinese stocks by foreign investors, pushing the HK-listed tech names and the US-listed China ADRs into a bear market technically. Although the regulatory risks remain high in near-term, investors seem getting a stronger hint about the policy direction. The glory days when China tech can be simplistically covered by just the offshore tech giants is gone, and there is increasing need for more granular understanding of the related policy headwinds and tailwinds. In this article our Partner & Co-CIO David Lai shares the thesis behind our Premia China STAR50 ETF, and how this timely launch adds value through its diversified exposure of the leading innovative and strategically important hi-tech companies focusing on innovation and hardcore technology.

From a total portfolio perspective, global asset owners and allocators are increasing wary about the overall portfolio sensitivity to interest rate changes and ultimately risk diversification. The concept of “equity duration” was raised long ago and has been subject to debate for decades. While some absolute calculations fail to work in today’s markets, we believe the economic and financial intuition beneath still hold. In this working paper, we took a renewed approach to analyze the relationships from a relative perspective and with an overarching objective of total portfolio risks in mind.

Two separate news items last week focused our attention on the gap in understanding about the rapidly changing energy landscape in China.

The Chinese government recently launched a stimulus package around the idea of “New Infrastructure” in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. What exactly does this new buzzword #NewInfrastructure entail? And more importantly, where do the investible opportunities lie beyond the tech giants Alibaba and Tencent?

The COVID-19 outbreak has led to a worldwide pandemic, a global slowdown, arguably a recession and hopefully not a depression. Business activities globally have been halted due to the outbreak and demand has been shrinking significantly as well. Apart from some of the Asian countries including China, we have yet seen an inflection point of the case curves in most countries. In this article, we’d like to share some notable leading Chinese players in the space that have been working hard to fight against the virus for the domestic and global community.

The virous outbreak becomes one of the largest threats to the global economy and financial markets in decades. Will China, the one which has been suffered from the pandemic first, be able to bounce back first and lead the recovery worldwide like the Global Financial Crisis back in 2008? The latest call in new infrastructure investment maybe the key.

The coronavirus situation in China seems to have improved a lot, and now many are worried about what will happen as the factories get back on their feet. How's the progress so far?

Recent market rallies, despite COVID-19, are neither “ill informed” nor “complacent” Markets are looking past the viral outbreak Stocks will likely return to being driven by whatever the trends were before the outbreak Developed markets are at the tail end of bull moves – they could edge a bit higher but the risks are on the downside, and that's got nothing to do with COVID-19 either Chinese equities could ironically outperform developed market stocks this year

On account of an atypical, tech-enabled start of the Year of the Rat, what are people doing during this very unusual Chinese New Year holiday period? While the roads are empty and quiet, we see extremely busy traffic online from social gathering and entertainment to post-holiday work arrangements all thanks to technology - which enabled an unconventional time of family reunion, and possibly fast-tracked development of enterprise digital transformation in the way.

With the current risk-on sentiment, it is reasonable for investors to look for growth area in the market. Yet, which sectors in China A-shares offer higher growth in 2020 based on the consensus forecast from the sell-side analyst? It would be essential to know beforehand for investors in allocating their assets in China market. That said, does it mean that anything outside the growth segments is not worth investing? Since China has been emphasizing on quality instead of quantity under the structural change of the economy, is it probable that there could be some hidden gems in the stable or slow-growth industries? We will try to answer these questions in this article.

We review the history of Chinese consumption over the last 30-40 years and explain why we believe the Chinese consumer holds the key to global economic growth, not just in China but in every country connected to international markets.

Whatever happens over coming weeks and even months in the US-China trade war, Donald Trump has irreparably broken the global trade architecture. And with it, he has also forced a realignment of the global supply chain that will likely see ASEAN emerge as a new manufacturing centre.