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Thank you, Dwyfor, and welcome everybody to the last session of our Research Retreat. Before Yuting and I really wanted to start the presentation, we do want to ask every one of you a very simple polling question. By looking at this polling question we just want to get a sense of where - or what asset class - do you believe will actually outperform the most in 2022 within EM Asia? If we go to the first choice, which is actually Asia FX; second choice being Asian equities; the third choice being Asia local currency, sovereign bonds; and the last but not least choice - being the most pessimistic choice of all - is, actually Asia will underperform in the year of 2022. I will let everybody maybe use the next thirty seconds to really answer the poll. Before I do share the results of the poll, let me first of all take you all back a summary of what happened in 2021. If we go to 2021, looking at the chart on the left we can actually see that Asia has hardly underperformed and had hardly outperformed in the entire year. These three lines look at the total return from January first to now. As you can see, all of the lines are hovering around that one hundred or that benchmark level. One thing is quite important, which is the chart on the right. If you look at the chart on the right, you can actually see that real money positions have changed despite this lacklustre performance. The biggest change that we've seen is in Asian FX. Looking at Asian FX we started off the year very buoyant, very risk on, being one of the most overweight assets that we have seen within our dataset. As the time progressed over, as we go from January to April to now - the latest data - we can see that we went from all the way being extreme overweight to now an underweight position. Looking back at the other lines that you can see, let's look at Asian equities. If you look at Asian equities, you can see that Asian equities have been the least favourable asset class within real money investors. They are persistently underweight, this story. Last but not least is sovereign bonds: sovereign bonds is where we see that investors have lost a bit of faith during the mid-year, but have regained that preference. Now that the results are in, let's go and see what you guys have voted to be the 2022 most preferred asset class. The results are quite interesting. If we look at the results we can see that Asian equities are the one with the most preferred votes, at fifty-two per cent. Other than Asian equities, the next one is: none of the above. This is a very, I would say, pessimistic point for me and Yuting to continue with our outlook! But let's really continue on with our outlook to see whether or not we think the same thing. Let's look at first of all how flows have changed over time. If we go to 2022 we can see that, as the numbers suggest, this is using data with IIF and not just with the stage three data. You can see that at first glance, the chart on the left shows us that Asia seems to be the one at the most risk. We have seen that since Taper Tantrum we have seen more than one trillion of inflows into Asia. Bear in mind that much of the inflows have been in China. If you strip out China - which is the dotted line in orange - you can see that there's only been less than two-hundred and six billion in flows within the last eight years. Now, that's quite interesting because with the exception of China, Asia has underperformed the rest of the other EM regions. Looking at the chart on the right, we start to see that the IIF data are quite relevant and quite consistent with what we are also seeing with our stage three proprietary data. Looking at the chart on the right, you can see that most of the inflows that we have seen have been concentrated in bonds. The likes of Indonesia, the likes of Thailand, the likes of Malaysia have seen very persistent inflows in the bond space, whereas in India it's been purely an equity story. Other than that, if we group all of the aggregate numbers together with EM Asia and China, we have seen that since the start of COVID we have already seen a two-hundred and thirty-three billion outflow story in the last two years. That's a very good starting point for us to understand that maybe the worst is over in terms of many of the outflows that we have seen. There are two things that I want to highlight in today's outlook. The first - and I think the most important - is the Fed. We obviously know from Chairman Powell that the tapering schedule, as well as the rate hike expectations, could both intensify given the strength of the real economy as well as obviously the inflationary pressures that we're seeing in the US. Now, obviously this will change on a month-by-month or even day-by-day basis as investors try to gauge what the Fed is thinking. The good thing is, looking at the chart on the top, we can see that while investors have already been extremely underweight Asian currencies, looking at the orange line - which is the EM Asia FX holding sign - we are already in the bottom quartile. We know that investors have been unwinding at a very aggressive pace, and much more aggressive than what maybe the Fed or the market is suggesting. If we break down by the bond markets that we see - which is on the bottom - you can see that not all bond markets will suffer during a change in the policy expectations from the Fed. Looking at it on the left, the most at-risk would be Turkey and Mexico. These are the ones we considered as high risk, high beta. More importantly they're also having very high foreign ownership and a very high inflationary reading as well. On the far right, or on the right-hand side, what you see is actually India and Chile being relatively more resilient given that these markets are smaller, they're less foreign owned. Actually inflation could be less of a problem going into 2022. We're starting to find a theme as we go into why we think Asian bonds may not be more downside comparing to the rest of EM. It's because real yields are still holding up quite well. Looking at the chart on the left of this page you can see that the theme is, we're starting to see that there are more and more factors starting to build a story for South Asia. Looking at the left-hand-side chart you can see that real yields are quite positive for the likes of Indonesia, for the likes of India and also for Malaysia and Thailand, which are all having positive real yields in this environment. That's a good sign in terms of the fact that if investors still want to get real yield, they can still have opportunities in EM Asia. The chart on the right is also something we want to highlight, which is a change in the foreign ownership of many of these bonds in Asia over time. As you can see, Indonesia has seen one of the biggest decreases since the start of COVID until now, from the peak of around forty per cent to now only around twenty per cent. Again this is not to say that EM Asia, in particular the bond space, will be immune from any changes in the Fed policy. But we think a lot of the downside could be priced in now comparing to before. The next thing I want to highlight is: if Fed is an issue, what about the growth story? Growth is also something that we are a little bit more mindful of, especially with the new variant making a lot of the places now go back to - potentially - lockdown. The chart here highlights why we also believe - like you guys - that EM Asia equities can still perform in 2022. If we look at the chart here we can see that growth expectations are coming down year-over-year. If we look at the two diamond green dots, you can see that in 2020 and in 2021 - versus obviously now in 2022 - the diamonds are moving more and more to the left. What that means is that growth expectations are coming down. When we look at where they're coming down, you can see that the deviation in terms of the growth expectations for next year relative to the longer-term average, you can see that it's still above zero; meaning that on a relative basis they're still growing at a faster rate relative to the long-term average. Yes, we do acknowledge that growth expectation is coming down. But we're not at a level where we think it's an outright bearish side in terms of growth expectations falling very quickly. Why is this the case? It's because not all Asian economies are feeling that pain. The theme comes again, as I've mentioned, where we see most of the GDP forecast. If you look at the GDP numbers - and obviously the inflation forecasts for many of these countries - you're starting to see that theme again where South East Asia is slowly making its way up on the top again. The likes of India, Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia are all moving in a much stronger position next year comparing to what they have experienced this year. This goes to the next point, where we think we should separate Asia into three different pillars of growth. Why is that important? It's because each of these countries have their own dynamics. If you look at the chart on the left, on the top you can see where we have circled in red; this is where we think could be the biggest risk next year, especially given how well they have done over the COVID period. The likes of Taiwan, Korea and Singapore have all benefited from that exports growth story due to lockdowns, due to working from home. What they have also relied on is that very persistent credit stimulus from China that has benefited their outlook or their export story. This is starting to be a problem if you look at the chart on the right, where Yuting will highlight even more in the next couple of slides on how credit policies will change over time. The middle scenario is where we see the orange circle, where these are the countries that rely a lot more on domestic consumption. India, Indonesia - where again they are the traditional high yielders - but all that they have experienced has been the very bad situations in COVID. Maybe a lot of that is already priced in as they are slowly reopening up again. The last piece, where we've highlighted in green, is on the right-hand side. This could be the biggest surprise for us because of the future reliance on services as opposed to just goods. The likes of Malaysia, Thailand and Philippines are all concentrated on domestic consumption, tourism. Obviously that helps to build their current account balance on the fact that if services can get further, I would say, improvements on the back of global economy reopening. This is obviously a little bit more of a tricky scenario given the Omicron variant that we're seeing. For now, it is still too early to wipe out the fact that we could see further and further reopening in South East Asia. The last point I want to highlight before I go past into the Chinese outlook that Yuting will share, is also on the earnings picture. This is why we think earnings will continue to drive the fundamental story of why we think Asian equities should be the biggest outperformer in 2022 relative to Asian bonds and Asian FX. It's because of the fact that earnings continue to look resilient. If you look at the chart on the left, you can see that again very clearly India, Indonesia is where we see the biggest change in earnings growth. You can also see that on the right-hand side, where the earnings growth forecast for 2022 continues to surprise on the upside, whereas the light blue line - which is tracking North Asia - continues to surprise on the downside. I think this is the year where we should not look at EM Asia as a whole, but focus in on different parts of EM Asia with the south looking a lot better and a lot more attractive on a valuation basis, on an overall flow basis and now obviously on a fundamental basis as well. So there are still opportunities but we just need to be more mindful going into 2022, with the risks that I have mentioned. With that said, I'm going to stop there and pass it over to Yuting to highlight what she's seeing, as well as our outlook for China in 2022. Over to you, Yuting.Thanks, Ben. As we all know, China was the first in, first out when it comes to a pandemic and had a pretty speedy recovery. But now fast-forward to the second half of this year; China is facing a lot of pressure in terms of economic growth slowing down, while the rest of the world is starting to gain speed in terms of their recoveries. We know China is facing multiple headwinds now, including property sector curves, regulatory crackdowns as well as the current ongoing zero-COVID policy. All of this is dragging on growth, as we see from the left-hand-side chart, where the macro momentum indicators that we track has already dipped below zero into the negative territories. Now we know the common prosperity will be the overarching theme for probably decades to come, that means China will push for more demand driven and more higher policy growth. They are betting more on consumption and will rely probably less on exports and investment. On the right-hand-side chart you can see the light blue bars that signal the contribution to overall GDP. Now when you look at consumption, it already contributes to a higher stat than its pre-COVID levels. In terms of, how much further can that go, is largely dependent on China's COVID policy - which right now is still looking to be zero-COVID for the foreseeable future and until we get more clarity in terms of the Omicron variant and what kind of impact that will be. That would definitely put pressure on growth. At the same time, we know that the current ongoing property sector curves have been putting a lot of pressure on the firms in the sector. Also given the high contribution to the overall GDP growth from the property sector, that is coming under pressure as well. At the same time, there are spill-over effects to both upstream and downstream firms and sectors related to property, as you can see from the left-hand-side chart, where floorspace under construction this year has been declining, along with the pretty dramatic decline as well in the overall steel output. At the same time, we know exports have been really impressive for the past year-and-a-half, given again China's very speedy recovery, as well as a lot of the challenges there in terms of global supply chain that the rest of the world is facing. But now that global recovery is underway, that means in terms of the consumption and external demand, that will shift gradually from more goods demand to more service. That means China's export growth will eventually likely moderate. On the right-hand side you can see from the chart that Chinese exports are already showing signs of moderation in terms of the new export orders. When you look at both on a month-on-month and year-on-year basis, it's already been in the negative for the past few months. With these multiple headwinds that China is currently facing, that begs the question: what gives? From our point of view, two points that we want to highlight are: savings and more easing policies. From the savings side, as you can see from the left-hand-side chart, China has one of the highest savings rates in the broader EM world. That means there is ample room for transition of consumer behaviour in terms of average people from saving more and from consuming more. How do you do that? I think in terms of the near-term, that again largely will depend on the COVID policy. Once we reach herd immunity and get booster shots and more clearance in terms of where the variant's impact on overall the efficacy of vaccines goes, that policy eventually changes. For sure, it releases a lot of the pent-up demand and especially in the service and in the entertainment sectors. Longer term, I think it goes back to the common prosperity theme, where in order to boost consumption you need to build up a better social safety net so that people would have less propensity to save so that they can consume more. At the same time, we know that from the PBOC's Q3 monetary policy report, they are starting to show signals that China is leaning towards a more easing stance. I think the authorities are now acknowledging there are more downward pressures on growth. So there is definitely scope for a unwinding of the current countercyclical tightening of monetary fiscal policies once we head into next year. The right-hand-side chart that we see, there are already signs of losing monetary conditions when you look at the nine-month lead, so that once that credit impulse that follows, that means there are hopes of more easing policies that will give more support to growth overall. At the same time, there's also another good news that in terms of inflation, right now when you look at both the PriceStats indicators that we track when we look at the Supermarket Index as well as the official core CPI data, it shows it's still pretty much well contained. It's actually at a pretty low level, and a lower level when you compare it to its pre-COVID-19 levels. That means there is limited pass-through right now from PPI to overall consumer prices. At the same time, that means China doesn't have the same concern as a lot of its fellow peer EM countries are facing; namely to have to consider tightening or hiking rates to curve the rising price pressure. On the right-hand-side chart, when we look at the deconstruction of our overall CPI basket, you see that about half of it consists of sectors that are highly relevant to the common prosperity theme; namely education, healthcare as well as… Yes, healthcare, education and housing. That means those are very important because if those are under control, that means rising price right now is not a concern. As long as price levels are well contained, there is definitely room for authorities to conduct more easing policy. In terms of some of our views regarding different asset classes, we think for formal risks right now, regarding the currency, we think the current strength in CNY is unlikely to be sustainable once we head into next year. We know for the larger part of this year, CNY has been going really strong. Of course that's supported by pretty strong fundamentals. You have trade surplus as well as pretty strong capital inflows. But as we have noted a couple of slides before, exports are already showing signs of moderation. Once global demands become weaker in terms of Chinese exports as well as weaker macros for and overall economic conditions, that means going forward they will put more pressure on overall RMB strength. On the left-hand-side chart you can see dollar is gaining strength as well. With Fed tapering already happened, and potential hikes on the horizon for next year, that will definitely put pressure on other Chinese currency as well. As we know right now, the CFETS basket in terms of the currency that we track, RMB is still pretty strong when it compares to the basket. Last time it was this high in terms of the overall currency strength, it was in 2015. There was a pretty big devaluation once we had that. Again when you look at the right-hand side chart where we look at the implied value by the Purchasing Power Parity compared to the nominal value, it shows that RMB right now is overvalued. The gap between the implied PPP value and nominal value is actually widening. We think at some point in the future it's due a reversal of the two. In terms of where we like, we think equities provide a lot of opportunities. From the left-hand-side chart you can see that Chinese equities have been underperforming when you compare to the rest of the world. You already see signs of investors starting to buy back into the Chinese equities when we look at all our own State Street global market flows. There is strong - I think ninety-sixth percentile - buying into the Chinese equities already. At the same time, we know bonds have been doing really well for the past year-and-a-half. Of course largely that's due to the pretty ample global liquidity as well as high real yield. You also have the bond inclusion that happened that supports inflow as well. Going forward, as the developed market countries start to conduct more tightening policy, that will compress the yield differentials. On the right-hand side you can see that when we look at the overall buying into the bond and equity markets for China, investors tend to buy both assets and they move in tandem. When you see breaks in patterns - the four, the red dots that we circled out - when equities underperform bonds in terms of investor sentiment, there is more buying into equities when investors buy into the dip. So now we had a spill-over from property sectors and regulatory crackdowns that had a very big impact on overall investor sentiment for Chinese equities. Now that we have signs of more accommodating policies that would come, we think there is a case for a more bullish view for the Chinese equities, and there are pocket of opportunities for a catch-up play. To quickly wrap up and summarise in terms of the themes and uncertainties we think are important going into next year: of course the global inflation trend and how Fed conducts its current tapering and future potential hiking policies of course will have a very big impact on not only China, but broader EM Asia as well. Of course the same goes for the supply chain bottlenecks as well as commodity prices. I think domestically speaking, for China the common prosperity theme is definitely something to look out for, also in terms of what themes can come in the future and what that means. Same goes for regulatory crackdowns both in terms of the directions where they go and intensities in terms of how severe and harsh those conditions will be definitely has a big impact on investor sentiments as well as the markets. Again COVID is still here. China's COVID policy is likely to stay at least for the near term. I guess we still have to wait and see in terms of the new Omicron variant and what kind of impact that will have on market. It's definitely something to watch out for as well. Last but not least, geopolitical challenges and issues are definitely something to watch out for as it not only has a regional, but global implication for investor sentiment. With that, I'll wrap up our presentation and pass it back to Dwyfor to see if there are any questions for Ben and I. Thanks.Thank you, Ben and Yuting. We'll move on to what is going to be our final Q and A session of the day. Again don't forget to put your questions through the Q and A chat box. We have quite a few questions here already. We'll move on in the last ten minutes or so of today's session and today's event actually with the final Q and A session.Thank you again, Ben and Yuting. There are a lot of questions here, as you can imagine. Some of them have already been answered, I would say. Some of them have already been addressed. There was a question here talking about: given Chinese growth, does the North versus South Asian narrative swing back in favour of South Asia? I think Ben covered that one quite well. We'll try and split up the Q and A between maybe some China-specific questions and also some more broad Asia questions. I think one way of doing this - and both Yuting and Ben can answer this because it's a question that has been submitted with relevance both to China and to emerging Asia. Indeed this is two separate questions but it's basically asking the same thing, which is partly around the new Omicron variant as well. This is talking about growth going forward. Do you expect Chinese growth next year to have an impact - to be impacted, rather - by the zero-COVID policy and the impact that the continuation of these new variants will have on economic activity within China? Do you think that will have an impact on Chinese growth going forward? It's actually quite similar to another question that we had, so I guess this is more relevant - the second part is more relevant for you, Ben, which is: does this Omicron variant actually put emerging Asia growth at risk more generally? I suppose that's a question of regional policies and how they would be impacted by a continuation of restrictions around COVID. Maybe, Yuting, if you want to start off with this one.Of course, there is a lot going on in terms of the variant; what's the vaccine efficacy, what is actually the infection rate and mortality rate? We're still waiting for a lot more clarity in terms of from the health expert side. I think in terms of its impact on Chinese growth, of course it will mean that China will stick to its current zero-COVID policy for longer. I think to some extent that actually vindicated China's current policy; COVID is not yet behind us and we have to be on high alert for the ongoing pandemic. I think for an overall growth, of course if zero-COVID policy is here to stay, that will have a very big impact on domestic demand. It's very hard to release that demand if COVID policy zero tolerance is here to stay. I think on the other hand, if globally there is a bigger risk to countries going back to partial lockdowns and more restrictions, that can help to some extent Chinese exports. That means you're demanding more goods than services once you go back to a partial lockdown mode. I think if that global risk from the pandemic were to increase, that will likely mean at the same time, globally central banks will conduct less tightening. That actually gives China more room to conduct more easing policy. That can give a little bit of boost to growth. I think in terms of the overall risk to Chinese growth it's a bit of a mixed picture. I think a lot more can be answered once we get a lot more clarity in terms of the actual impact from the variant.Ben, for Asia more generally because obviously this was a big thing for India six months ago, nine months ago, for example.Yes.Obviously it's been a big thing for Thailand as well with respect to opening up the tourism sector and all that. The rest of Asia impacted by further restrictions, impact on growth? That's the risk, right?Yes, I think the initial impact has to be negative with respect to investor sentiment towards EM Asia. But I think what EM Asia benefits from comparing to let's say Western Asians is: first of all policies have already been strict in Asia. This is something that from a relative perspective, it's not that big of a change comparing to what we're seeing in the US or in Europe, where they went from full lockdown to full reopening, to now basically partial lockdown. For Asia it's been a very mild change in terms of policy. So it wouldn't be a big surprise in terms of this variant being a big change for Asia in terms of that type of policy. The second thing also is: Asia is also benefiting from the fact that I think lower inflation remains to be that central theme for Asia. If we look at our own PriceStats data that Yuting has mentioned, Chinese prices are still relatively subpar, or actually hovering between that deflation territory. Even if we look at other places like Korea, like Indonesia, like Thailand where core inflation is still, I would say, just near what the central bank target is for the central bank. So in terms of comparing Asia versus let's say the Fed, where they are in a much more difficult position because they need to slow down inflation, whereas in EM Asia inflation isn't a big threat for them. So they could actually delay any type of tightening given the fact that the variant could actually be a bigger, I would say, downside surprise. The last thing is positioning. The data that we see on the positioning side are, as we mentioned in the earlier part of the presentation, EM equities, EM FX are both extremely underweight by institutional investors. So that's a very big difference when we're comparing to an overweight situation in US equities, European equities or other parts of the currency space like in Aussie and Kiwi, where high-beta commodity are also overweight. EM Asia doesn't really have that positioning overhang that we need to be too concerned of a wipe-out once the Omicron variant actually does surface into Asia. I still think that we are a little bit more on the upside in terms of the variant, but obviously the initial reaction will still be negative.I'm going to stick with Ben, actually. We're going to move on to geopolitics and China before the end of this Q and A. There are a couple of questions have come in which speak on the same topic. We'll address those with Yuting shortly but I'm going to stick with Ben. A question has come in here for Ben: you mentioned the risk for the export-oriented countries; Taiwan, Singapore, Korea, for example. Do you actually think the supply chain issues will continue to provide a boost to these exporting countries? Obviously these have been the winners during the pandemic.Yes.For as long as we have these supply chain issues, are these likely still to be outperformers?Well, I think the issue is, the supply chain issue will continue to fade. That's not just in China, but also if we look at many of the chip shortages, a lot of the corporates have already announced that they are moving back closer towards full production. Not yet, but obviously moving towards that. The second thing is, I think everybody is a lot more, I would say, well understanding of what COVID is and the work from home idea of, obviously, exports. It's unlikely that we'll see the same magnitude of demand comparing to before. As an example of this, even if you work from home now due to the Omicron variant, it's unlikely that people will buy new laptops, new computers, new iPhones or whatever that may be. They purchased them early, two years ago or one year ago. The aggregate demand from a renewed variant I think is much less comparing to the initial demand, when people didn't know how long COVID would last. I still think that it's more on the downside for these North Asia stocks and economies, where there is a lot better pricing comparing to a potential rebound in South Asia.We're going to move on to geopolitics. This is where it gets really interesting! There are two questions here and they're variations on a theme. Yuting, I'm going to throw this at you - and maybe, Ben, you might have a view on this as well. Here we are, here's the first one - two questions - and they're effectively the same thing. How do you expect the recent geopolitical situation surrounding China to impact inbound investments? Then a second question that came in is virtually the same: given the persistent regulatory crackdown across major sectors, how best can the Chinese Government revive investors' appetite towards Chinese assets in 2022? In other words, what does it need to do to be a preferred home for, I guess, portfolio and also for investor assets in the next year?Those are actually really good, interesting, very timely questions. I think the recent geopolitical challenges have definitely been in the spotlight and on the minds of a lot of investors. I think in the near term, that definitely has an impact on the overall investor sentiment towards China. I think from the Chinese side it's very important to be better communicators in terms of what the policies are about. How they divide between the politics and the actual market impact should be more clear. I think authorities start to realise that they need more clarity in terms of communication. I think longer-term speaking, an overall common prosperity theme is here to stay. That means China is very determined in terms of pursuing more sustainable growth into the future. That means lower growth rate but more sustainable growth, so I think long-term speaking there definitely are still lot of good opportunities in China and in broader, different assets. But I think in the near term it is important to keep in mind the Chinese authorities need to be more transparent and better communicating at what those policies mean and what the implications are for the broader market.Actually I've got another question for you then which is a bit of a follow-on from this, which is, more and more global indices of course are accommodating Chinese securities, Chinese assets. What's the path or the roadmap going forward for things like the Chinese credit rating systems in terms of transparency of corporates and transparency of Chinese assets? What's happening on the ground in China in terms of improving things like credit scoring, credit management, things like that?I think on that front, China is making improvements in terms of more clarification and more transparency, but I think there is definitely a lot of room for improvement. There is of course still a lot of shadow banking and local off-balance-sheet financing for a lot of firms. It's a bit tough to get an actual very accurate picture in terms of the credit ratings for a lot of companies. I think in order to avoid spill-overs from those companies becoming on the risk of default, China does have to do a good job in terms of more transparency and maybe more regulation in terms of companies being more straightforward in terms of what's actually happening and their financial situation, so that not only can help authorities to manage spill-over risks better, but also for investor sentiment-wise, people wouldn't have a knee-jerk reaction of entire risk off from all the companies in the same sector when one bad company is facing financial challenges. Yes, I think that's very important.We're running out of time; we're down to the last couple of minutes actually, so we'll just have one more question. We've done China, to some degree. Maybe one question more broadly on the whole Asia region that I'm going to throw up, Ben, is that I guess you can pick whatever asset class you want realistically; bonds, equities, FX. What's the best Asian story over the next year, and what's the Asian story to avoid? What's the relative cross-asset trade within emerging Asia that you'd look for the next year?I think Asian bonds will definitely be the one that, as a team, we feel quite cautious about in the next twelve months. As I've mentioned earlier in the presentation, with Fed tapering earlier than expected, rate hikes, all of that eventually would mean basically a smaller spread and a smaller advantage that you get from owning Asian bonds. More importantly it's the way that real money investors have positioned themselves since the Taper Tantrum, which is buying and buying of local currency bonds to capture yield and manage to do this in a very, I would say, low volatile period - whereas they have continued to, I would say, unwind Asian equities and been in and out of Asian FX over the last couple of years. So Asian bonds will definitely be an area where we would avoid for now. Asian equities again would be an area where we think it could be a good catch-up play in terms of obviously the overall sentiment being relatively still risk on. The question obviously remains in China, as Yuting has mentioned, because it is at the end of the day the biggest component of any indices that investors track. The end goal, I think, for China is to find that balance. I think the last year, what we have seen is that there wasn't a balance. Everything seems to be more on the downside: regulatory crackdown, growth slowdown, no support from PBOC policy. If they do continue this pathway, to Yuting's point, maybe that's actually going to derail investor sentiment. On the other hand, if they continue to try to find that balance, take something away, give something back, trying to find that barbell approach to what they do, then I think it will still create a reasonable environment for investors to tap back into EM Asia. I think given how flows have moved, I do believe in Asian equities being the biggest upside, and unfortunately Asian bonds being the more downside, and FX being really hovering between the middle on the back of any movements from the dollar.In other words, Ben agrees completely with the poll we had at the very beginning, which showed Asian equities as potential outperformers over Asian bonds. The clock is coming down to the last ten seconds, so clearly we are running out of time. With that, I'd like to thank Ben and Yuting for this very enlightening session on China and emerging Asia.
It was a challenging year for Emerging Asia, with the impact of COVID-19, fluctuating market conditions in China and uncertainty over central bank policies persistently dampening investor sentiment as well as investor flows in the region.
The market slowdown in China seems to be a recurring theme that will likely impact Asia in the coming months.
Ben Luk, senior multi-asset strategist at State Street and Yuting Shao, macro strategist at State Street, share their 2022 macro outlook for Emerging Asia with an emphasis on China. With early signs that growth expectations are moving in the right direction coupled with more clarity from the United States Federal Reserve, will Asia be able to rebound or will China further its decoupling and drag the region lower? Ben and Yuting examine what might be next under China’s “common prosperity” goal and how geopolitical tensions will unfold between the US and China, especially with China's 20th Party Congress and the US mid-term elections on the horizon in 2022.
State Street LIVE Research Retreats deliver insights and intelligence on the trends and topics impacting global markets and our clients.
State Street LIVE Research Retreats deliver insights and intelligence on the trends and topics impacting global markets and our clients.
State Street LIVE Research Retreats deliver insights and intelligence on the trends and topics impacting global markets and our clients.
State Street LIVE Research Retreats deliver insights and intelligence on the trends and topics impacting global markets and our clients.