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.

Premia Asia Innovative Technology ETF (AIT) since its inception in 2018, was designed to capture the Asia leaders powering the growth of existing and emerging innovative technologies. Without a doubt, the hottest theme trending now is the Metaverse, as Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced earlier that the company name change and sees the Metaverse as the “successor to the mobile internet”. While this is still an emerging but quickly evolving topic, there are already considerable number of Asia leaders active in the space as emerging metaverse natives. How can investors position for opportunities early in this space?