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.

Dec 16, 2021

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.

Dec 08, 2021

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?

Dec 07, 2021

Vietnam has been one of the best performing markets this year surpassing even the US markets. With increased vaccination rate and lowering new infection cases, recently the government has also eased covid restrictions and lifted social distancing curbs across the country allowing business to resume economic activity

Dec 01, 2021

The regulatory crackdowns in China across multiple sectors have unnerved many international investors. Is China still investible for international investors? How should we configure for China opportunities in the new normal? Are megatrends still relevant going forward? In this webinar, Kinger Lau, Chief China Equity Strategist at Goldman Sachs, Xin Li, Managing Editor of Caixin Global joined our Partner & Co-CIO David Lai to share more about the manifestation of ESG and common prosperity from investment perspectives, and sectors that would be under multi-year policy headwinds and tailwinds under the 14th Five Year Plans. Please message us if you would like to watch the replay, and for a similar session on Oct 26 with David. please register HERE.

Oct 13, 2021

The recent regulatory crackdowns and power suspension in China have unnerved many international investors. How to configure for opportunities under the lens of common prosperity and China’s commitment for carbon neutrality by 2060? In this article, we compare the Premia China STAR50 ETF (3151.HK) and Premia CSI Caixin China New Economy ETF (3173.HK), and discuss why they are useful implementation tools to capture long term opportunities in hardcore technology and strategic new economy sectors under the 14th Five Year Plan.

Oct 12, 2021

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.

Oct 05, 2021

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”.

Aug 18, 2021

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.

Aug 05, 2021