Discerning value amid China’s macro noise

When China reopened at the end of 2022, domestic stocks had a V-shaped rebound, analysts raised their earnings forecasts, and companies prepared for a steep recovery in the economy. But the market’s optimism soon faded and turned into disappointment.

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Latest insights

In our last update, we touched on the idea of high-quality companies hiding in small market capitalisations in ASEAN . This, in our view, is due to years of declining foreign-investor interest in the region. These companies are usually not covered in great detail or indeed at all by sell-side research analysts.
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In response to the recent client interest around China’s market and the challenging performance year-to-date, we had a conversation with Martin Lau, managing partner and lead portfolio manager for the FSSA Asian Equity Plus and FSSA China Growth strategies.
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In the FSSA GEM Focus strategy we own high-quality businesses which have competitive advantages such as strong brands, distribution advantages, cost leadership, or simply providing a service/product that customers cannot live without. Historically, this has given them pricing power and the ability to preserve margins despite adverse headwinds.
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After Chinese stocks rallied upon the abrupt end to pandemic lockdowns in late 2022, pessimism has taken hold of the markets again. This time, concerns include the uneven post-Covid recovery, the lack of stimulus and weak external demand.
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One of the true competitive advantages we believe we have at FSSA is a genuine long-term investment horizon. For us, investing is not about trying to predict which stocks will rise or fall next month or quarter; rather, it is a non-speculative activity aimed at participating in the long-term value creation we believe the best companies can generate.
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As the saying goes, those who stand for nothing, fall for everything. And so it is that we believe there isn’t a price for every business. Most are better left alone in the interests of sleeping better at night. Staying disciplined to our process means erring on the side of caution and avoiding companies where we have lingering suspicions about the governance practices.
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At FSSA, we are long-term, bottom-up investors with a focus on quality. This mind-set also applies to how we engage with companies on Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) matters.
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Looking back (though it’s not like we didn’t already know), it is clear that we have been living in an increasingly distorted world. Financially, for the last decade, it has been about interest rates falling to (and staying at) zero in a world of general money printing.
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In the past 12 months, global investors have worried about a “regime change” in the long-term inflation outlook, as well as the heavy rotation away from technology companies after the Covid optimism reversed.
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Following on the FSSA China Growth strategy’s 30th anniversary, we sat down with our China portfolio managers Martin Lau, Winston Ke and Helen Chen to respond to recent questions from investors. In this Q&A, they discuss market valuations, inflation, geopolitics and recent company visits.
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