As hurdles for sustainable recovery in China equity markets continue, with mounting macro pressure on earnings amid currency weakness, will fund managers rejig their China equity-focussed portfolio and look somewhere else in 2024? Chui, portfolio manager, Franklin Templeton Emerging Markets Equity, shares his thoughts
Nicholas Chui, Portfolio Manager, Franklin Templeton Emerging Markets Equity
The year 2023 has been a year of challenges for China with growing concerns on debt and deflation as the economy re-opened following strict lockdowns due to the zero-Covid policy. The China equity markets have been weak among emerging markets peers while corporate earnings have struggled in an environment of high interest rates globally and weak local currency. Global investors have started to look elsewhere for better opportunities in the year. The perspective is going to shift gradually, Nicholas Chui, portfolio manager, Franklin Templeton Emerging Markets Equity, tells Forbes India. “Looking forward to 2024, I think the ingredients are there to allow for a recovery to be a lot more sustainable, as well as broadbased. What we are looking out for is how this recovery broadens out,” adds Chui who manages China equity strategies. Edited excerpts:
Q. There seems to be consensus that there are rising concerns about China’s economy and equity markets, people are withdrawing funds and moving it to alternatives like India. Do you agree?
If you look at the price action of China, it certainly reflects a lot of bearishness and a lot of selling that's happened. Now where that money has gone to is definitely a second question—you will have to trace that. India, naturally has, benefitted from that for the right reasons, it has done a lot of things that are fundamentally correct. But with regard to China, there are two-fold reasons as to why investor sentiment has declined: There was a de-rating in the market, at the same time, the earnings of companies are slipping. The de-rating is due to a couple of reasons. Obviously, geopolitics is one but if there's no growth, people don't pay up for it. So it's related to the fundamentals again.
I think a lot of that assessment has been accurate, which has led to the selling, but what's really changing right now is what we think and what we see is happening on the fundamentals. And I think that's why some of that selling has, kind of, abated, because you reach a point now, where a lot of investors who want to sell, have sold.
At the same time now, a lot of investors will continue to hang on to China stocks.