Duncan Robertson

Market Outlook

Asia Outlook

Outlook

Latest Asian economic and market outlook. 

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The ongoing war in Iran presents a significant growth challenge to Asia, given that all countries in the region, with the exception of Malaysia, are energy importers.

At this stage we have made few changes to the portfolio as a result of the war. We are explicitly avoiding chasing energy exposure since we believe the medium-term picture on both energy and gas is one of severe oversupply. Indeed, to the extent we have made changes, it has largely been to add to positions that we believe have discounted an overly negative scenario, such as MakeMyTrip.

Whilst there is a high degree of uncertainty on the path from here, we note several factors that point to a swift reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. Trump clearly wants to declare victory and move on. The war is polling badly and hitting him further on the cost-of-living narrative. China’s involvement in pushing Iran to the negotiating table is significant – China buys a significant portion of Iranian crude and supplies components to the Iranian military industrial complex. The involvement of large Muslim majority nations such as Pakistan and Turkey in mediation helps. Iran also needs to sell oil. It therefore cannot afford to antagonise the whole world by shutting the Strait of Hormuz for too long. The position of blocking the Strait becomes harder to justify as military conflict winds down – especially since other advanced nations steadfastly refused to join the US in the war.

If we are correct in the above analysis, then we would expect oil prices to fall, and the USD to correct. This would be good for Asia, and, we believe, our positioning, which, outside of AI, is focused largely on Asian domestic demand in the truly emerging markets in the region, such as India and ASEAN. 

With the war leading to a further sell off in India, we are seeing value in that market to a greater degree than we have done in a long time. We have recently added to our weighting, mostly through MakeMytrip, and India is now our biggest overweight.

In North Asia, we have taken profits in Taiwanese tech, but used the sharp correction in Korea to add to our holdings in SK Inc and Hyosung, reducing our underweight.

Though we have added to several of our internet holdings in China, as well as Crystal International, we remain around 9% underweight HK/China as we sold two of our smaller positions - Zhongli Innolight and Hangzhou Great Star.

Important Information:

Nothing in this document constitutes or should be treated as investment advice or an offer to buy or sell any security or other investment. TT is authorised and regulated in the United Kingdom by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).

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