Upward trend: A woman walks past a Hong Kong Stock Exchange sign. Citigroup is upbeat on Chinese stocks and has upgraded Hong Kong to overweight in Asia, saying Beijing’s pivots on zero-Covid and property will most likely lift earnings. — AFP
HONG KONG: Citigroup Inc is turning more bullish on Chinese stocks, upgrading Hong Kong to overweight in Asia and saying Beijing’s pivots on zero-Covid and property should lift earnings.
“Reopening, along with support for the property sector, should help stabilise the current China earnings per share (EPS) downturn and support investor sentiment,” strategists, including Robert Buckland, wrote in a note on Sunday.
“China could offer an attractive domestic-driven recovery story even as other major economies are slowing sharply.”
While the 12-month forward earnings estimate for the Morgan Stanley Capital International (MSCI) China Index languishes close to a multi-year low, market participants from New York and London to Hong Kong have recently turned bullish on China amid President Xi Jinping’s shift from draconian Covid restrictions and rigid property policies.
Benchmark indexes in Hong Kong surged into bull markets in recent weeks, after featuring among the world’s worst performers for much of this year.
The Shanghai Composite Index has made a u-turn after testing a 17-year support.
To be sure, Buckland and team said they wouldn’t aggressively chase the prospect of a cyclical earnings recovery in China as it remains “poor at turning gross domestic product (GDP) into EPS”.
Citigroup upgraded the MSCI China Index to “overweight” in the Asia model allocation on July 7. Since then, the gauge has fallen by 22%.
Among other allocation changes, the strategists downgraded Taiwan to neutral and South Korea to underweight, saying both should see a contraction in earnings.
In South-East Asia, they raised Malaysia to “overweight” while downgrading Indonesia to “neutral”, saying the former has “firm GDP growth and reasonable valuation”.
The bullishness on Malaysia comes even as the nation’s recently concluded election established its first-ever hung parliament. — Bloomberg
