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September 2, 2024 41 mins

China’s economic turmoil has made it into one of the world’s largest value plays, but anxious investors are keeping a polite distance. Fearful consumers, job insecurity, youth unemployment, and a property sector crisis are spooking foreign capital despite rock-bottom equity valuations. But is now the right time to jump back in? And what will it take to get China’s economy – and its markets -- to snap back? Hao Hong, Chief Economist and Partner at GROW Investment, weighs in with co-hosts David Ingles of Bloomberg Television and Rebecca Sin of Bloomberg Intelligence on Tiger Money.

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Speaker 1 (00:00):
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Speaker 2 (00:17):
Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, and good.

Speaker 3 (00:21):
Night wherever in this vast, beautiful planet you're joining us from.

Speaker 2 (00:26):
Thank you for making time.

Speaker 3 (00:28):
Welcome to Tiger Money, a Bloomberg podcast about things investing
with a twist on exchange traded funds in Asia and beyond.
I'm one of your hosts, David and Glass, a Chief
Markets editor for the Asia Pacific at Bloomberg TV, and
I'm also the host of The China Show.

Speaker 2 (00:42):
And Michael pilot Is.

Speaker 4 (00:44):
I'm Rebeccason, head of Asia Pacific ETF Research at Bloomberg Intelligence.

Speaker 3 (00:48):
And just keep in mind this conversation is strictly non confidential. Rebecca,
our guest today, perhaps doesn't need an introduction, but why not.

Speaker 4 (01:00):
For those that may not know how Hong is the
chief economist and partner of Grow Investment, a Chinese based
hedge fund, Director of China Chief Economists Forum, ad Junk,
Professor of the People's University and is a passionate wine
drinker and his favorite drink is muy Thai. But today
we're going to talk about the September effect, as historically
September has been the worst performing month in the year.

(01:22):
And with that, let's bring in how Hank. Thank you
so much for joining us on Tiger Money.

Speaker 5 (01:26):
Yeah, it's great to be here.

Speaker 3 (01:28):
Yeah, how I wanted to start off by just picking
your brain. Where you think the economic recovery is. Are
things better off compared to six months ago? And what
six months ago better than the previous six months? Where
do you think we are in this recovery.

Speaker 6 (01:44):
We're still at the bottom, you know, struggling, trying to
find the bottom and trying to rise from the issues. Now,
as you can see, the Chinese consumer is rolling over.
They are saving like this no tomorrow, so the bank
balance in the banking system is surging. And then at
the same time, if you look at the social retail growth,
it's anemic at about two percent. So as a result,

(02:06):
you don't see much price pressure in the Chinese consumer sector,
and yet deflational repressure in the upstream sectors. I think
the only sector that has been doing well is the
exploding sector, right, So Chinese making red cut trade surplass,
you know, taking all the US dollars into the US
dollar reserve. And also the Chinese manufacturing sector seems to

(02:30):
be raising eyebrows of the Western observice regarding the overcapacity
over investment issues.

Speaker 3 (02:37):
Yeah, now you mentioned a few things, right. There's no inflation,
there's very lackluster consumer spending. There is still a travel
that's going on of course domestically, but there are no
price pressures. And we see that in recent earnings and
not just talking about this quarter. Recent quarter earnings that
you know, a lot of these companies have been cutting prices,
giving promotions, protecting their margins instead of growing revenues. And

(03:00):
I'm wondering what you think is the crux of that.
If there was one reason why you think consumers don't
have the same amount of confidence as they have in
previous years, what would you point to.

Speaker 6 (03:12):
I think it's the expectation for employment stability, right, so
you can see, you know, the existing employment in the industries,
in many of the industries is actually in you know, falling.
You know, many people don't have the job securities as
they used to have, and Also, you know, there's like
every year you have fifteen million new fresh grads entering
the job market as far as we can tell. You

(03:35):
know that like almost half of the graduate students from
last year didn't find employment until now, right, so now
you're adding another fifteen So you can see the unemployment situation,
especially amongst the younger generation, is quite severe. So I
think as a result, you know, it's creating a headache
and also it's creating a sense of insecurity in the

(03:55):
Chinese population.

Speaker 3 (03:57):
Yeah, I remember the most recent I think a few
weeks ago, they released a monthly employment numbers. The National
Bureau Statistics are are press briefing right after the release,
and one of the things they mentioned was because it's seasonality, right,
it's the time of the year when you're getting college
graduates hitting the market and there's not enough absorption that's
going on in the labor market. So the other question

(04:20):
that keeps coming up all the time is why aren't
policy makers, at least on the surface, doing more. Why
isn't there a more apparent sense of urgency or is
there but they just have a different toolbox to deal
with the current problem.

Speaker 2 (04:37):
What is it?

Speaker 6 (04:38):
Yeah, Well, there's so many reasons, but it's phenomenon. I
think number one is that because right now, to me,
different ministries are doing their wrong things. You know, the
Housing Ministry is trying to prevent a further property crash,
the PBOC is cutting interest rate by ten bibs at
a time, and the Ministry of Finance is trying to

(04:59):
catch up on.

Speaker 5 (05:00):
The chessary issue.

Speaker 6 (05:02):
And because we issue substantially less chessary in the first
half of this year, so it seems to me that
you know, different ministries are doing different things and there's
a lack of coord invation there. And I think secondly,
you know, because what we're seeing right now is more
structural than cyclical. Right so all these things is a
result of years of overinvestment under consumption and also years

(05:23):
of excessive investment in the property sector. So right now,
because the property price picked out at about twenty twenty
one and now we're entering the bubble bursting phase. And
so I think as a result, you know, as you
can see, the pressure on job security, the pressure on
consumer confidence, and also the pressure on the entire economy
is palpable.

Speaker 5 (05:44):
So as you can see right now.

Speaker 6 (05:46):
The real estate investment, which used to be the pillar
of the Chinese growth has been replaced by manufacturing investment,
and that is causing substantial over capacity in the manufacturing
sector as well.

Speaker 3 (05:58):
Okay, you opened up a lot of doors there. I
want to pick up on one of the initial points
that you brought up, and I think it's probably the
most important in my opinion. The savings rate has gone
up effectively. The amount of deposits that are piling up
in China's banking sector has just kept going up. That
we thought we would see a draw down when things
reopened from COVID zero, and then it kept going up, right,

(06:18):
And maybe partly because people are not buying homes, maybe
something else. Maybe it's a combination of both. Some people
say it's a crisis we're seeing in China because people
are not spending. But if the money's there, how how
can we call it a crisis. They're just not spending it,
you know, compared to crisis that we see in other
countries where there is no money backs have no credit

(06:40):
to extend, this one is actually not as bad compared
to the GFC.

Speaker 5 (06:45):
For example.

Speaker 6 (06:46):
Yeah, that's mostly true, David, That's mostly true. I mean
the savings in the banking system now reached three hundred
and fifty trillion yard, right, which is just substantial by
any stander. But then at the same time you have
to look at the family's spalance and also the potential
liabilities they're facing. For example, Rand one of the hartest
topics in China is about how you get enough for

(07:07):
your retirement and what age can you retire, you know,
because the Social Security Fund seems to be having a
little bit of trouble meeting the liabilities requirements. So I
think as a result, people are saving you there is
a risk out of risk conversion, not because you have money,
but because they're saving for potential needs and also for

(07:27):
the lack of social security net. And I think this
is the area that it's begging for reforms. And in
the reason third prenum, we're hearing some noises that were
yet to see concrete steps moving along.

Speaker 3 (07:41):
It is a very complex problem, right, I mean, it
wasn't too long ago, what forty years max, that China
was a completely different economy, right, So things progressed quite
rapidly in one part of the economy. Maybe some of
the aspects like the social safety not to your point,
haven't quite seen the same structure. I think it's called sigene, right,

(08:01):
the fore funds you mentioned, Different ministries are doing different things.
My question to you is have we just not weighted enough?
Like is this just too big of a ship that
can turn in six months? In other words, looking at
the current cocktail of support measures, where do you think
this economy will be in three years time?

Speaker 5 (08:21):
Wow? I don't know.

Speaker 6 (08:24):
Just now I mentioned that in the challenges that we're
facing are not cyclical. They're turning into a sort of
a secular downtrend. Right, So in a sense that to
re engineer, to restart this engine you need to firstually
reform the social security net, increase job security, increase the
pay level, Increase the take home pay of your workers
as a percentage GDP so that people can actually have

(08:46):
money to spend, and so in so doing then you
can manage to change the savings pattern and also propensity
to consume, so that you know, we can re engineer
this economy to be less dependent on investment and more
sort of dependent on consumer consumption. We've been calling for
a sort of an economic restructuring since like two thousand
and six, I think, so there was like almost twenty

(09:08):
years ago, so back then, you know, if you can
still remember, right, So, they want to re engineer Chinese
economy into a consumption based economy because they believe that
by being a consumption based economy, the volatility in the
Chinese economy would go away because you know, the consumer
inevitably can be more stable, right Right, So then for
some reason, you know, after twenty years.

Speaker 5 (09:29):
We're back to the old past.

Speaker 6 (09:31):
We're investing like the snow tomorrow in creating access capacity
in industries and exporting like the snow tomorrow and rely
on on foreign demand for Chinese goods to export US
out of trouble. This clearly is not sustainable, right. So
obviously we've seen our foreign trade partners, you know, imposing
tariffs on Chinese exports, and I'll be surprised to see

(09:53):
more to come as the US election unfolds. So I
think right now, because much of the challenges and not
cyclic co then even if you do you know, say
consumption coupon or text cards and et cetera, et cetera,
it's not going to change the structure of the economy
and therefore it's not going to solve your problem.

Speaker 4 (10:13):
So we know that the Chinese national team or the
Sovereign Wealth Fund has been purchasing a lot of ETFs
this year, specifically to support the market. For the first
time ever, Mainland China ranked second by inflows globally at
one hundred and five billion dollars. US is ranked first
with six hundred billion. But we've seen Chinese ETFs hitting

(10:34):
the top ten funds for ETFs globally. So for instance,
we have Hua Tai, Pine Bridge Efund, China AMCCSI three hundred,
all getting massive inflows. Do you think this is sustainable?
And how much do you think the regulators will pour
into ETFs? What are your thoughts around this?

Speaker 6 (10:52):
Yeah, we're at twenty eight hundred right now. Right, So,
when I first got back to China from Wall Street
like fifteen years ago, it was recent thousand, so we
actually lowered it fifteen years ago. Every year, you know,
we have this protection of three thousand poonds raging in
the Chinese market. But then for some reason we felt
again earlier this year. If you remember, there was a

(11:13):
corn quick in the Chinese market. Is so back then
because of a severely created crisis in the smaller cab
segment of the market, and also because the national team
was buying the big caps like the Snow Tomorrow, basically
destroy all the market neutral strategy or the alpha strategy
or the effective corn strategy in the market. So it
creates a huge sort of a downward spiro when selling

(11:36):
pressure in the Chinese market back then, and then the
market sort of stabilized at around twenty six hundred ones.
All the leverage has been destroyed since then, we're starting
from a clean shited paper. And then because of the
lequ of buying, because of there's so much probes going
on in the fund management industry, right, so they are
trying to ask the fund managers to pay back the

(11:57):
salary and bonuses. They're investigating on the heads of some
of the fund management companies for corruption and for other
illicited activities, et cetera, et cetera. So imagine in this environment,
who would be focusing on their work, right, So people
would be like so busy trying to figure a way out.
So I think as a result, you know, the fun

(12:17):
performance has been appalling. So I think buying ETF has
been one of the ways to sort of support the
overall in this level. Because back in twenty fifteen, when
the national team was trying to rescue the market, it
chose to buy some very small cab and without much liquidity,
without much trading volume. And so the problem with such

(12:38):
approach is that you know, firstly, you create very erratic
price response in these smaller cab names, and then secondly,
you know, it's very easy for some of the people
who are in the national team to front run these
kind of executions, and indeed there was like persecutions later
on for people who actually did the fund running. So
this time around they sort of changed strategy so they

(13:00):
to buy the index fund rather than buying individual stocks,
because the index funds comprise of larger cap stocks. So
you can see right the breath in the Chinese market
is very very narrow, is the worst in the global
markets ranking. So you see a handful of megacab stocks
rising up, for example, the Chinese banks, which shouldn't be

(13:22):
rised at the time of property crisis. You know, all
the names with the China World in their company names.
Those megacab names are rising. But then at the same time,
thousands of stocks keep making a low and that's the
reality of the market. So I think just now you
mentioned that you know, there's a huge fund inflow into
the Chinese et apps. It is because of the national

(13:44):
team's buying efforts. And I think this year the amount
of money they spent buying the ed apps is actually
substantially higher than the money they spending back in twenty
fifteen when they try to rescue the market from a
bubble burst.

Speaker 4 (13:57):
How much more do you expect them to buy?

Speaker 6 (14:00):
They would be keep buying. I wouldn't be surprised to see,
you know, because it's needed right so, because if you
talk to people in the domestic market, wow, you know,
the pessimism is so palpable that people just refuse to
buy stocks right now. So you can see from the
trade volume, the trading volume is like so low. The

(14:20):
active trading account is for the first time in history
below fifty million. All of these is telling you that,
you know, the market is very pessimistic and people are
unwilling to take any risk in the stock market.

Speaker 2 (14:33):
If they will continue to buy.

Speaker 3 (14:34):
And by the way, I don't know how much you're
actually spending, Rebecca, you might have some insight actually, and
how big the budget so far has been to keep
the market from falling.

Speaker 2 (14:42):
But is this an unlimited pit of resources.

Speaker 3 (14:45):
Guys that they that they have at their disposal to
at least put a floor underneath the market.

Speaker 4 (14:51):
So our estimate is that the national team can buy
as much as one hundred billion by your end. They're
currently at sixty six billion. This is US dollars, yes, okay,
sixty six billion. And what we've noticed is that they
have started to buy not only the large cap but
also the small caps to diversify so that all of
the etf issuers benefit from this. But how what are
your thoughts on this? Do you think one hundred billion

(15:12):
is low about right?

Speaker 6 (15:14):
Even though the trading volume is dying out in the
dominion Chinese market, we're still talking about a couple of
hundred billion Chinese yan a day. So if you buy
one hundred billion US dollars a day, they just like
the days of transaction in the Chinese market. And also
I understand the branching out to the smaller cap names.
You know, they did the same thing back in Factruary, right,

(15:34):
because back in February they bought the megacab first and
then they destroy all the leverage. And also you know,
people were forced out of their smaller cab position. And
because of the market lack of liquidity, people couldn't sell.
People couldn't sell, and so they creates a huge crash
in the smaller cap names as well. So I think
the modern area at this stage and I think, you know,

(15:55):
one hundred billion US dollars by the end of this
year maybe far from being enough.

Speaker 3 (16:01):
Okay, So what do you think will create the conditions
for a sustainable market, Because I imagine it's more than
fixing the economy. There probably needs to be some reforms
we need to see in the market itself, you know,
the piping and regulation and other things.

Speaker 2 (16:18):
So where should we start.

Speaker 6 (16:21):
There has to be a fundamental reconstruction of confidence. If
you remember back in April, between April to and of May,
for two months, there was a decent rally in the
Chinese mind, very good rally. Ah So there was thirty
percent up in the Hands and Index and also fifty
percent up in the Hands and Tech Index. And for
those two months, the Chinese economy isn't doing much right.

(16:44):
You can even argue that the fundamental is actually worsening
during those months, But yet the Chinese market had a
decent rally. So what that is telling us that you know,
even though you're facing all these challenges and structural issues
that can't be fixed in one go. But as long
as people see hope, then you know, people would actually
come back to the market.

Speaker 5 (17:03):
So back then there was whispering in the.

Speaker 6 (17:06):
Market that you know, there was a new housing fund
being set up, so they're going to use these government's
money to buy up all these excess housing and use
them as economy housing for lower income people. So people
were excited back then. And also you know, there was
seems to be a genuine effort to sort of re
establish the friendship with our trading partners, most importantly the

(17:29):
US et cetera, et cetera. So I think as a result,
because of the perception has changed, and therefore there was
a decent technical rebound during those two months. So I
wouldn't be surprised to see, you know, if we could
sort of instill the confidence back to the economy, also
relaxed the environment, you know, less censorship, I think things

(17:50):
would turn dramatically better.

Speaker 3 (17:52):
I remember also, right before that rally took place, I
think it started in April, was they changed the guy
at the top of the CSRC right wu chingh A, Yeah, well,
the butcher of the brokers is what he was called, right,
because he was very strict. I think it was in
the mid two thousands when he was last in a

(18:13):
similar position, and a lot of people that we talked to,
including yourself, if I remember, correctly pointed to that being
a pivotal point. Just because the market is in a
bear market, it doesn't mean people are not making money, right.
You know, there are tactical trades that you can put
in place, and people are making some money, maybe even
decent money. But to your point, we need to step

(18:35):
away from this being a tactical or a trader's market.
And what do you think the path is for China
to take its market and move it away from being
just a trader's market. I don't say avoid it completely
to being something akin to the US equity market, where
you know, you have allocations, you have market cap, you
have fun flows along with of course a part you know,

(18:57):
part of the US equity market is also a trader's market,
Like how do we get from point A to point B? There?

Speaker 5 (19:02):
Wow, there's a I don't know, the change market.

Speaker 2 (19:07):
It's about what would you like to see?

Speaker 6 (19:10):
Yeah, well, protection of private property strong recognition of property rights. Uh,
you know, get rid of frauds in the listing market,
geary of the frauds in the listing process, severe punishment
for security frauds, et cetera, et cetera.

Speaker 5 (19:26):
You know they're doing that now though, yes, I know.

Speaker 6 (19:29):
But then, as you can see, the incentive system here
is not quite right. So the incentive system here is
that if you do something wrong, I punish you, but
if you do it right, there's no reward. Then therefore,
you know, people are not willing to take any risk.

Speaker 5 (19:45):
Right.

Speaker 6 (19:45):
So, if I were a CSRC chairman, you know, make
sure that nothing goes wrong in the stock market. So
I would ask the national team to buy. I would
try to quell any volatility that arives in the marketplace.
I will get rid of the IPO listing process because
there's still so much fraud in the listening process. You know,
I'll do all those things. So in so doing, I

(20:06):
get rid of all the trading activities in the marketplace.
And as as such, then I get rid of all
the volatility because there's no trading, there's no buying selling before,
there's no trading, and therefore there's no volatility in the
marketplace all right. So essentially this seems to be the
approach that many of the other ministries are taken. For example,

(20:26):
the PBOC is shortening the chess Rey bonds to avoid
the bond bubble, you know, because the bond bubble can
be destabilizing for the bond market. You know because in
the back, yeah, many of the commercial banks are the
biggest bondholder of the Chinese Chasury bonds. And then the
Ministry of Finance is issuing less chess reponds behind the schedule.
Now it's way behind the schedule, et cetera, et cetera.

(20:46):
So as you can see, like people are just trying
to do the minimum to get by. There's no incentive
for them to work hard to get the reward. There's
only incentive for them to avoid the penalty in this system.
So how would the system work?

Speaker 5 (20:59):
I don't know.

Speaker 6 (21:00):
You raise a very granted and challenging question to answer,
and I think my answer here only touch the surface
of that. For the past thirty years, Chinese market has
gone a long way from an occasionally market with you know,
thirty stocks listed in the Shanghads Stock exchange to now
more than five thousand stocks trading on the stock exchange,

(21:21):
and the derivatives that you can trade with. There's index future,
there's index option, and you can even short sell some
of the Chinese stocks and also of your mainage Chinese investors.
You can mesage the Hong Kong market to the connect program.
So the Chinese market has.

Speaker 5 (21:35):
Gone a long way.

Speaker 6 (21:37):
So I think right now, of all the stuff that
I mentioned just now, the most urgent task for the
authority is to change incentive in this system to let
people take more risk, to give them the courage to
take risk, rather than you know, instill fear in them
to avoid taking any risk so that they don't get

(21:58):
pin on us.

Speaker 3 (21:59):
Right, But there's a different still between treating something like
a casino and incentivizing risk in that sense, yes, and
creating a rational marketplace, which you know in many cases
actually to your point, right, there is so many products
in this market that you know, people in the West
don't really understand. They barely understand the complexities of the
Chinese equity market and how far it's actually come from

(22:22):
way back. Okay, let me put a very simple question
to you, what is the most popular investment in China
these days? Where would you put your money. What's the recommendation.

Speaker 6 (22:33):
Because I run a domestic funds in the Chinese market,
in the middle market as well, what I'm saying is
that my clients are buying cash management products. That shows that,
you know, the risk aversion in the system is very,
very high, and across the industry there's much redemption from funds.
You know, people refuse to put funds in risky investments anymore.

(22:54):
And also people I get increased about, you know, how
to invest overseas. Right so, right now, it seems to
me that you know, people are more averse to investing
in the mainland Chinese market and then more inclined to
invest in the overseas market, especially the US market.

Speaker 1 (23:11):
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Speaker 4 (23:28):
So let's talk about the US market and the rest
of the world, because we've seen a lot of influce
going into the US. You know, tech has done very
very well. India for instance, has seen twelve billion dollars
worth of influence and some are saying that India is
going to replace China from an asset allocation standpoint.

Speaker 6 (23:43):
What's your thought on this, Well, if you look at
the reason MSCI rebalancing of the Emerging Market Index, you know,
the Chinese stocks, a couple of them got kicked out.
So as a result, you know, the weight of the
Chinese market in the Emerging Market Index has been decreased,
and therefore, subsequently you expect some from the outflow to
other index components. So yeah, I wouldn't be surprised to

(24:05):
see Indias taking some of the weights from.

Speaker 5 (24:07):
The Chinese market.

Speaker 6 (24:09):
But then at the same time, if you look at
the Indian market, it's puzzling to me, you know, because
I know that David has been around for a long time,
so back in twenty fifteen, actually, you know, during the bubble.

Speaker 2 (24:20):
Nine years ago. You make it seem what I've been
here for.

Speaker 3 (24:26):
Market show of the electricity, you know, you make it
seem like I was here during you know, when the
light bulb was invented.

Speaker 6 (24:32):
But yes, yes, yes, yeah, because the Chinese market is
only thirty years old, right, so you've been here for
more than ten years, which makes you a veteran. I
still remember, you know, back in twenty fifteen, I was
discussing with David about how the Chinese soft bubble was bursting.
Even back then, you don't feel the same level of

(24:53):
pessimism in the marketplace. And back then, you know one
of the major running stories that you know, the MSCR
is going to rebalancing more and more Chinese style is
going to get into the system, and therefore in China
as a major emerging market should take fifty or even
more than fifty percent of the index weight. That was
the story back then. But right now it seems to

(25:13):
be sort of unraveling. And obviously you know, India is
the darling of the day. But then India these days
is exhibiting quite a bit of similarity as the Chinese
market back then in twenty fifteen, during the bubble years,
there are much retail investors participating in the stock rally,

(25:34):
and actually I was told that the foreigners actually backing out.
And also in terms of the earnings multiple, I think
it's trading it close to thirty times earnings, which is
very high as well. So to me, it's exhibiting a
classic sign of bubble. So I would be surprised to see,
you know, India would be an immediate replacement or immediate

(25:55):
substitute to the Chinese space. And despite all the sort
of passive and the cctivities that we discussed just now,
there's still plenty of opportunities in China, especially now the
valuation is so depressed.

Speaker 3 (26:08):
Right just to bring up a point because how you
know so I think a few weeks ago we were
joined on the show.

Speaker 2 (26:13):
Rebecca by east Spring.

Speaker 3 (26:16):
East Spring and I'm not going to name the name,
but eaes Spring Investments came on the show and they
said exactly what hall Long just mentioned India right now,
particularly when you look at small caps and the valuations
you're getting there. So large caps are about twenty twenty
five times you go down the market cap scale and
you go all the way up to about forty forty
five times, if not fifty sixty times earnings when you

(26:37):
look at the small caps, and that guest that we
had on the TV show said, it reminds me exactly
of the Shanghai composite in that massive ascent back in
how do you remember this two thousand and six, two
thousand and seven, Yes, where we went from fifteen hundred
to I think six thousand. I was mad classroom back
then in China, and then it crashed all the way

(26:57):
back down to two thousand.

Speaker 2 (27:00):
How do we get to a point of market maturity?
I guess right.

Speaker 3 (27:03):
So, if you're a dollar investor, what confidence would you
have to look at a market, even like India or
China and leave a permanent allocation since we're talking what
the proper allocations are in ems? Or does it just
make sense for fund managers out there? And sorry, I'm
going on a round here to do purely China strategies

(27:25):
or a purely India strategy or an em X China
x India strategy. I don't know, Like, what are you
guys hearing?

Speaker 6 (27:31):
Yeah, well, I think it still pays to look at
it from a global perspective, and I think the Chinese
market is by you know, being sold off as it
is right now and people are very pessimistic. It is
still very I think it's the cheapest market in the world,
and also it's the second largest market in the world,
so it's placed in the global market cannot be ignored.
It's an important and systemic, significant force. But then at

(27:56):
the same time, you know, as we discussed just now,
there's much to be changed for this market to function again,
and therefore investing in the Chinese market can be a
longer term task, a longer term challenge for many of
the global investors. I think specifically for India, it's a
different issue. It's a timing question, you know, whether this
is the right time to get into this market as

(28:18):
as opposed to where the India is the market to
be for the long run. I think both India and
China are systemically important and therefore they are longer term
investment opportunities for global investor. But then I think in
the near term though in the very near term, though,
I think China offers more investment appeal from a value
perspective than the Indian market.

Speaker 4 (28:41):
So for our listeners, the MSCI Emerging Market Index has
China allocating a weight of twenty two percent, India at
twenty percent, Taiwan nineteen. That's close South Korea at twelve.
So China and India really neck and neck in terms
of an acid allocation across the broad based But if
we shift geared to Japan, Japan has seen phenomenal influence

(29:05):
this year eleven billion NIK two to five is up
more than fifteen percent year to date. Do you think
Japan's strong equity performance is sustainable and do you think
there's more risk than opportunities there?

Speaker 5 (29:19):
It depends on your view on the yen carry train?

Speaker 3 (29:22):
Oh wait, is that purely Are you saying that's a
purely currency play? What's happening in Japan?

Speaker 6 (29:27):
Well, some people will argue that it's not right. So
I was told there's some you know, shareholder reform, you know,
the shareholders demanding more say in the voting, et cetera,
et cetera.

Speaker 5 (29:35):
But I think it's just a mirage.

Speaker 6 (29:37):
If you look at if you ask an average Japanese person,
you ask him or her whether he's or her life
has been improved during this phenomenal stock market boom. I
think theianza is a resounding note. So people are paying more,
Things are substantially more expensive. Chiapan is good for the
foreign travelers, but really bad for the domestic Japanese consumer.

Speaker 5 (29:59):
Even the the Japanese.

Speaker 6 (30:00):
Expert surplus is actually having a deficit despite a very cheap,
historically cheap yen. So what that is telling me that,
you know, the cheap yen, it's more a speculative instrument
rather than a vehicle rather than sort of a beneficient
force for the Japanese economy. So I think right now,
you know, because of the reasons out of I think

(30:21):
in early August, because of the crash, I think the
Tokyo Stock Exchange was trading at about fourteen fifteen times.

Speaker 5 (30:30):
I can't remember.

Speaker 6 (30:31):
Yeah, so the valuation becomes more reasonable. So I think
that kind of level. You know, there's still investment value
in it, because everything has a price. But if you
ask me, you know, whether the Germanese economy has turned
fundamentally better, then I would have my reservations.

Speaker 2 (30:49):
Okay, I guess we can save this next idea.

Speaker 3 (30:51):
I'm about to bring up another podcast because there seems
to be complex since we're putting Japan together with China. Right,
is China headed in the direction of Japan? Yeah, years ago,
But I think we're going to open up a kind
of worms there. We don't have enough time to really
because that's a very nuanced story too. Right, So in
many ways they're the same, but there are subtle differences there.

Speaker 6 (31:12):
Yeah, because the Japanese was reached, you know, when the
bubble burst, but the Chinese is not yet rich and
the bubble is bursting.

Speaker 5 (31:19):
That's a huge difference.

Speaker 6 (31:20):
And also, you know, if you look at the population
age of the Chinese population is aging rapidly. So I
think that is a huge challenge, not just for the
housing sector, but also you know, for social security, for
all the stuff that we discussed just now.

Speaker 3 (31:33):
Going forward, So let's say in this trading at twenty
two times earnings, let's just say the SMP is trading
at about the same, if not slightly below, but we're
getting pulled higher by you know, a single stock and
video right trading at thirty eight times. Japan is somewhere
in between. You have Hong Kong benchmarks as a representation
of the China story, trading at nine times earnings.

Speaker 6 (31:55):
Right.

Speaker 3 (31:55):
So you said there's some extreme opportunities available now if
China turns.

Speaker 2 (32:02):
Looking at valuations in China, that's right.

Speaker 3 (32:04):
If allocations snap back to pre bear market levels, that's
a big return, right, So pick your index out if
you had to buy China. Now, if I buy into
that thesis, what's the index I buy among the many
indexes that I have available going along on China?

Speaker 5 (32:23):
The Chinese Bawn index.

Speaker 6 (32:30):
You didn't name that index, which has been doing very
well this year insistently. Yes, yeah, and it's perceived as
a safe haven for a large amount of money to
park in there. If we purely look at the valuation multiple, yeah,
you know, China has indisputably lowest valuation multiple. But then
at the same time, you know, because as a fund manager,

(32:52):
you still have to time your entry. So right now,
you know, China is very, very cheap, and I think
it's the biggest contrarian story of the year because nobody
wants this as for some reason except the national team,
all right, So it's a huge contrarian play here, all right.
But then you need the courage and also you need
the right timing to get back into this market right now.

(33:16):
I am not entirely sure it's the right time to
get back in just yet. But then there are other
investment opportunities in the Chinese market place you can look at.
And then at the same time, you know, for the
other three markets that you mentioned just now, Japan, US
and India, And obviously you know, we like the US
market for now because earning is very very strong. You know,

(33:36):
this earning season is actually stronger than the last earning season.
All of these companies are turning out really good results.
The market breast is broadening, the liquidity condition is rising,
and also the physical deficit is continuing. So that make
the US market a bit more attractive from a timing perspective,

(33:56):
despite a very high valuation.

Speaker 2 (33:59):
How a big picture question for you.

Speaker 3 (34:02):
You work on Wall Street, right, you speak with international media,
you come on Bloomberg and some of our peers. You
teach in China, so you understand the market. What do
you think the West doesn't get about China? What is
the biggest misconception you hear that you constantly need to
push back on.

Speaker 6 (34:22):
M the Chinese mentality of working hard and saving hard.
I think it's very difficult to understand, you know, because
it's a culture thing is it's been passed down for
generations ever since we're here. You know, we've talked to
work very hard and save very hard for rainy days.
And so I don't think the Chinese saving phenomenon and
as a result, the overinvestments phenomenon is going to go
away because of the tariffs. I think that's a huge misconception.

(34:46):
You know, this is a sort of a structural peculiarity
that cannot be fixed by teriffs and by all these
you know, trade wars and stuff. So I think if
people understand that, then you know, people would sort of
thing differently, because for some of the foreign investors that
I talked to, you know, they seem to be seeing

(35:07):
the Chinese over investment in the manufacturing industry as an
action with malicious purpose for some reason. For example, Donald
Trump and say, oh wow, you know, the Chinese guys
are trying to read us off, you know, stealing our jobs,
blah blah blah.

Speaker 5 (35:19):
But it's not.

Speaker 6 (35:20):
This is a global structural phenomenon. The Chinese safe very
hard and the US consumer spending really really hard. Right,
So it's because of this coupling relationship sort of give
rise to the global structure these days, and it's not
going to go away anytime soon. So once people understand that,
you know, people may change their attitudes and their approach

(35:42):
to resolve this issue.

Speaker 3 (35:43):
You brought up a very good point there, So you know,
when some of the noise we hear, and we know
this because we cover politics, right, and part of your
job powers allocating resources is to see through the politics.
You know, what is as an example, you brought up
what is Donald Trump saying that it's probably not.

Speaker 5 (35:59):
True, right.

Speaker 3 (36:00):
My question, if I could clarify that too, is for
the sophisticated investor that sees through the political noise that
we hear from Donald Trump about destroying jobs and all
these other things. Are there misconceptions among smart sophisticated investors
about China that you think are misguided?

Speaker 6 (36:23):
Uh? The smart guys who also has a misconception about China?

Speaker 5 (36:28):
Mm?

Speaker 3 (36:29):
Yeah, the people who sit on a massive portfolio. I
think smart as a relative term, but people who sit
in a massive portfolio, because I imagine they don't make
a decision simply based on and again to use the
Trump example, simply based on Donald Trump thinks China slated jobs.

Speaker 1 (36:48):
In the US.

Speaker 6 (36:49):
That's why I'm taking my time to you know, thinks
for you know, how best to answer your question. I
think another misconception is that China is very difficult to change,
very reluctant to change, you know, it's almost recalcitrant to change.
But in actual effect, China can be quite pliable. So
as you can see right the way we come out
of the COVID lockdown in a very dramatic fashion. I

(37:12):
think the Chinese culture has a sort of a trading mentality.
So if something doesn't work, it will change. Even if
some thoughts are very well in changing the system, if needed,
it can be changed as well.

Speaker 5 (37:25):
Right.

Speaker 6 (37:25):
So that's how we get through the cultural revolution, how
we gets through the COVID lockdown, how it gets through
a lot of difficulties in the past, and also we
got our reform and open and continue to reform.

Speaker 5 (37:35):
And open to this day.

Speaker 6 (37:37):
So I think, you know, that's probably one of the
misconceptions from the smartest guys in the room. They think that,
you know, the Chinese century is over, yeah, and there's
no more opportunities in China.

Speaker 5 (37:47):
It's so untrue, you know, because if you look at.

Speaker 6 (37:50):
How the Chinese TVs and the Chinese solar, the new
energy industry that rise to the status to enjoy these
days now less than street years ago, the Chinese car
industry is still having a trade deficit. Now, I think
the Chinese car in terms of value added is the
highest in the world. And also the Chinese evs in

(38:12):
terms of number, it's actually larger than I think larger
than toyotanel right now. So that is telling you that
there's a lot of potential that can be unearthed in
the Chinese system, so I would say that, you know,
for people who lost hope in.

Speaker 5 (38:26):
The Chinese marketing. Also the Chinese economy.

Speaker 6 (38:28):
Look at the history in the past forty years, the
Chinese economy has gone a long way. In the past
three years, some of the Chinese industries have gone a
long way, and they're showing you the potential and the
willingness for China to evolve and make it better tomorrow.

Speaker 4 (38:44):
Okay, So moving on to the fun questions. If you
were to buy a Chinese EV car, which one would
it be?

Speaker 2 (38:48):
Wow, don't say Tesla please.

Speaker 5 (38:54):
It's making Shanghai. It's making in Shanghai. Test Lia is
making Shanghai vs only.

Speaker 4 (38:58):
Four thy five hundred US in China, so it's very cheap.

Speaker 5 (39:02):
Yeah. Actually, these days there's many of the MPVs.

Speaker 6 (39:06):
There is also evs made in China, so they come
with you know, massagere the B and O sound system
and also the in car, a huge cinematic display, off
screen stuff like that, and I think it was very impressive.

Speaker 5 (39:20):
So there are many many choices.

Speaker 6 (39:21):
I mean, I don't want to be appearing endorsing a
particular plan, but I've written so many Chinese TVs that
I'm very impressed by the interior design.

Speaker 4 (39:31):
All right, you're going to pick a car based on
interior design? Favorite color white white. Yes, we noticed that
whenever you appear on TV you always wear a red tie.

Speaker 6 (39:40):
Yes, why because yes, for good luck. Red is an
auspicious color in the Chinese s culture. So in the
Chinese New Year, you know, you hang out this red
color stuff, You hang out red packets to your kids,
and you send out red envelopes to your mom's as
well as in red is auspicious in the Chinese salt market.
It's the sim for rising stock price. So I always

(40:03):
choose to wear a red tie.

Speaker 3 (40:04):
That's a good point. People don't know that red actually
means up when you look at charts in China. Right, Okay,
how you said you're not going to endorse any brand,
but I think you'll make an exception to this next question.
You mentioned red, right, Yeah, the finest red wine or
the finest Chinese.

Speaker 6 (40:23):
Liquor malth Thaie, there's no competition, especially the fifty year
old Maltie, fifty year old male tie, so smooth, so smooth,
So when you drink you can put a little bit
of saffron in your wine glasses and then the one
would change into a deep sort of crimson chocolatey carameulish color.

(40:44):
Your man, your head, a seep you know it has
a seffron favor and a fifty year old east that
is melting in your mouth.

Speaker 5 (40:51):
It's just phenomenal.

Speaker 6 (40:52):
And I think after a very long day, you know,
you light up a cigar and then you're having one
of those you make your day complete.

Speaker 5 (40:59):
We've done that. Actually, yes, there we go.

Speaker 4 (41:04):
We'll have to end our podcast with about time next time,
but thank you so much for joining us. How Tiger Money.
We've learned a lot.

Speaker 3 (41:12):
I had time, Yeah, and looks like this is just
episode one of a series with how long. Thank you
so much for all our listeners. This is Tiger Money,
a Bloomberg podcast about investing funds in financial markets in
Asia and beyond. If you like what you hear, please
do not forget to subscribe, to like, and to share.

Speaker 2 (41:30):
Until next time.

Speaker 3 (41:31):
You can find us inside the Bloomberg terminal or on LinkedIn.
We look forward to hearing from all of you. This
podcast was produced by Clara che
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