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Hubbis will host a very timely Digital Dialogue discussion amongst China experts on September 14 to drill down into the opportunities on offer in China’s capital markets, discuss key challenges for international private client investors, and consider the best avenues for those that want to increase or selectively build their exposures to ensure they enter the right target sectors at the right times and with the optimal balance of liquidity and risk mitigation.
To set the scene, China’s equity and capital markets entered 2023 in a more positive frame of mind, rising almost 20% through to late January from the recent lows of late October 2022. But the market then traded sideways until August, when sentiment towards China was hit hard as news emerged of serious debt troubles at Country Garden, China’s hugely indebted and largest property developer. That news spooked investors, many of whom remember the Evergrande crisis of 2021, which was followed by a wave of defaults across the industry.
The emerging crisis at the company seemed to be a catalyst for leading foreign investors offloading Chinese equities heavily since then, as they also focused more intently on a series of negative news, such as the vast economy looking set to miss its 2023 growth target of 5%, and crackdowns on tech giants such as Tencent and Alibaba, related apparently to national security concerns. Moreover, they focused more realistically on the further ramifications expected for them as international fund managers related to the US thrust to contain China’s technological, memory chips and AI advances, amongst others.
The September 14 discussion will bring delegates up to date on these big-picture developments, but also look through this type of volatility and these worries to the opportunities that China, the world’s second-largest economy, still evidently clearly offers. Indeed, many leading global fund management names were, as recently as July, quite confident that China would be able to push through any crises of confidence, geopolitical worries and lower growth predictions, often pointing to key sectors and individual stocks that will likely outperform. Moreover, the MSCI China Index has been trading only at around 10 times 2023 projections, while the S&P 500 Index still trades at more than twice that level.
Indeed, the glass-half-full story continues with views that the government has this year appeared, in general, to be clearer on its policies for the years ahead, making it far easier for investors to participate in state-preferred sectors, such as green energy, EVs, new age batteries, healthcare, and other key sectors that are core to China’s future. Moreover, the country has appeared eager to further open up its capital markets. And foreign investment as yet accounts for such a tiny proportion of China’s equity markets, that prices are really driven almost entirely by Mainland investors.
But there are plenty of avenues for foreign investors to access China, such as through Hong Kong-listed H shares and also via other international markets. They can also buy into actively managed funds and ETFs that themselves buy into the domestic A shares. Or if through Stock Connect or through the QFII and RQFII programmes, qualified foreign investors, including wealthy HNW and UHNW clients, can also buy in directly.
In short, our experts will debate where the opportunities are today and in the foreseeable future, set again these and other key developments. And for those that do buy in, how should they do so? Stock picking? Through actively managed funds? Through ETFs, smart beta strategies and thematics? Equities only? Or fixed income as well? Onshore securities? Or through offshore access only? Or perhaps a combination approach?
What about ESG and sustainability, are they helping to drive higher returns and/or reduce risks? Which sectors should investors be looking at – for example, is property still off limits, which areas of technology are back in favour, and what are the key segments that government policy will help drive to higher profitability and valuations in the foreseeable future? And how is the wealth and asset management industry catering to the needs of these investors?
Join us on September 14 for what will clearly be an interesting and very timely discussion.
China’s Markets and Identifying the Right Investment Strateg...
3.00pm - 4.00pm HKT/SGT

A community of leading organisations within Asian Wealth Management

Senior figures in Asian Wealth Management are speaking at this event

Yi Wang
CSOP Asset Management

Jessica Xu, CFA
Hywin International

Gareth Nicholson
Nomura

Jasmine Duan
RBC Wealth Management

Gary Dugan
The Global CIO Office
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3.00pm
China’s Markets and Identifying the Right Investment Strategies
- What is happening in China’s equity markets this year, what do recent developments mean and what is the outlook for the rest of 2023 and beyond?
- How do HNW and UHNW private foreign investors navigate the volatility caused by bad news around property giant Country Garden, the seeming lack of clarity in China’s domestic policy actions and worries over global geopolitics, especially the US crackdown on China’s technology innovations around chips and AI and wider security concerns?
- Should investors be taking a much longer-term view of the opportunities most directly aligned to China’s 5-year and longer-term plans for the economy?
- Are China’s equity markets undervalued and if so, why? What sort of investor demand is there at home and from overseas?
- What type of weightings should China standalone have in well-diversified institutional global portfolios? And should China be seen as part of the EM universe or as a standalone market, much like Japan was in the 1980s and beyond?
- Given all the recent developments and outlook, what sort of exposures should Asia’s HNW and UHNW private clients have to China as a percentage of the APAC portfolios and their overall global portfolios, and why?
- Where are the best opportunities in China’s equity markets, i.e. which sectors and which types of companies should investors focus on? Why?
- How should investors access China’s equity markets, is it via ‘A’ shares, ‘H’ shares, via stocks listed in the US, or in Europe? What are the advantages and disadvantages of each approach?
- Should investors be buying active funds managed by the China watchers and experts? Or plain vanilla ETFs? Smart beta and thematic ETFs? Or all of the above?
- And should private clients in Asia also be looking at China’s vast fixed-income markets, even after the major concerns over debt in the property sector? And what would be a sensible approach to accessing this market? Onshore debt? Offshore debt? Via active funds? Via passive funds? And why? Or why not?
Speakers
Gareth NicholsonChief Investment Officer and Head of Discretionary Portfolio Management, International Wealth Management
Nomura
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4.00pm
Webinar Ends
China’s Markets and Identifying the Right Investment Strateg...
3.00pm - 4.00pm HKT/SGT


Yi Wang
CSOP Asset Management

Jessica Xu, CFA
Hywin International

Gareth Nicholson
Nomura

Jasmine Duan
RBC Wealth Management

Gary Dugan
The Global CIO Office
China’s Markets and Identifying the Right Investment Strateg...
3.00pm - 4.00pm HKT/SGT

China’s Markets and Identifying the Right Investment Strateg...
3.00pm - 4.00pm HKT/SGT