Should Investors Allocate to Public or Private Chinese Investments?
Public and private Chinese equities both present attractive investment opportunities today.
Public and private Chinese equities both present attractive investment opportunities today.
Yes, but only if you can tolerate the volatility.
While we have advised a gradual approach to investing in China, today we believe that investors should take a systematic and comprehensive approach, overweighting Chinese assets relative to their index weights. Looking past the uncertainty and negativity, investors will find a large investment opportunity set, a robust universe of public and private managers, and appealing public equity valuations.
No, MSCI index inclusion will not trigger a bull market in Chinese A-shares. Given the very modest initial weights and the lack of clarity on future increases, we doubt that index-driven flows will drive share prices meaningfully higher.
Japan’s long-term economic outlook looks brighter, and the positive structural and governance changes achieved under prime minister Shinzo Abe have improved the opportunity set for long-term institutional equity investors. This progress—paired with improving corporate fundamentals and reasonable valuations—boosts the appeal of Japanese equities. But, several ongoing internal and external risks to the reform agenda and economic outlook require monitoring.
Though the risk from rising rates is potentially higher in Australia than elsewhere given household debt levels and the state of the housing market, we judge the risks and outlook as balanced and advise investors to remain neutral on equities and risk.
The risks from rising rates are potentially higher in New Zealand than elsewhere given the overvaluation of equities and the housing market. We advise investors to underweight NZ equities, fixed income in general, and the NZ dollar.
China has recently opened its domestic bond market to foreign investors. At first glance this is a huge opportunity for investors. However, as with many things in China, the story is more complicated than it appears.
A number of Asian private equity real estate managers that we view favorably are likely to fundraise in the latter half of 2017 and first half of 2018. We expect that many of these managers, while performing well, will face challenges raising additional capital as limited partners question the merits of investing in Asian property. In particular, US investors perceive the market to be overheated and have concerns about foreign currency risks. In this edition of Real Asset Dynamics, we examine and analyze these concerns further.
We remain neutral on Japanese stocks despite attractive valuations and near-term earnings potential in view of daunting intermediate-term macro challenges.