8 January 2025
Kai Kong Chay, Senior Portfolio Manager, Greater China Equities
Wenlin Li, Senior Portfolio Manager, Greater China Equities
Ben Yu, Head of Equities, Taiwan Region
In 2024, Greater China equities closed higher due to a series of stimulus measures which catalysed the underlying structural momentums and growth trends. In this 2025 outlook, the Greater China Equities team will elaborate on four reasons for more upside potential going into 2025 despite potential US tariff concerns and geopolitical headwinds, as well as investment opportunities based on the 4As positioning for Greater China equity markets.
1) New fiscal policy initiatives
2) Mainland China can navigate tariff situations via different methods
3) Mainland Chinese corporates are “valuing up”.
4) Mainland China/Hong Kong markets can re-rate with better fiscal policy execution
From a sector perspective, we believe that mainland China should benefit from the following key areas despite macro and geopolitical headwinds:
Our investment process: GCMV + catalyst
Our investment team uses the GCMV (growth, cash generation, management, valuation) + catalyst framework to conduct investment research. This framework is applied for all company analysis which helps identify companies with competitive advantage, strong financial profile, earnings catalysts, and management teams that have created value for shareholders.
4As positioning
We believe there are 4 megatrends (expressed via the 4As positioning) which present growth opportunities that the team invest in via the GCMV lens.
We favour service-oriented and niche consumption sectors, including Technology, media and telecommunications (TMT) and platform companies (e.g. food delivery, online music), education, tourism, and home appliances (e.g. smart appliances)
We prefer leading companies with strong innovative capabilities and global footprints in the healthcare, and industrial and EV sectors.
In terms of investment opportunities, we favour AI wearable devices, AI smartphone supply chain and autonomous vehicles.
For Taiwan Region, we believe the next generation of AI development continues to present many structural opportunities across foundries, the next generation of AI, data centres, and HBM, etc. in the medium-to-long term.
We prefer strong, advanced manufacturing leaders with robust research and development capabilities. These companies benefit from the domestic growth recovery while at the same time riding on overseas market strength due to strong pricing and margins in overseas markets.
Fed easing cycle supports US fixed income assets
We believe that the dynamic investment approaches of the Preferred Securities and the USD Income (USD core fixed income) help navigate economic and rate cycles, offering attractive investment opportunities for fixed-income investors seeking higher-quality assets with relatively stable income.
Navigating interest rate and growth uncertainty with high income multi-asset solutions
We believe that multi-asset income solutions like GMADI will remain relevant and attractive for investors as yields remain high, offering the opportunity to capture an abundance of elevated yields in the market.
Asia-Pacific REITs: A shift in expectations
AP REITs should benefit from the shifting macro landscape, leading to several positive trends such as improving distribution per unit (DPU) growth and increasing inorganic opportunities.
Fed easing cycle supports US fixed income assets
We believe that the dynamic investment approaches of the Preferred Securities and the USD Income (USD core fixed income) help navigate economic and rate cycles, offering attractive investment opportunities for fixed-income investors seeking higher-quality assets with relatively stable income.
Navigating interest rate and growth uncertainty with high income multi-asset solutions
We believe that multi-asset income solutions like GMADI will remain relevant and attractive for investors as yields remain high, offering the opportunity to capture an abundance of elevated yields in the market.
Asia-Pacific REITs: A shift in expectations
AP REITs should benefit from the shifting macro landscape, leading to several positive trends such as improving distribution per unit (DPU) growth and increasing inorganic opportunities.