Investors buy, then bide time on China
Nearly 1/3 of Asia fund managers are buyers - BofA survey
Fiscal stimulus seen as trigger for further gains
Tech sector preferred
By Tom Westbrook, Dhara Ranasinghe and Naomi Rovnick
SINGAPORE/LONDON, Oct 18 (Reuters) -Global investors are buying China and betting last month's rally has legs, but few are willing to go large until there are far more concrete signs that the economy and earnings will improve.
The sentiment shift has been fast and furious, spurring billions of investor cash that had been diverted to India and Japan rushing back to bring China exposures from near record lows towards neutral or market-weight.
In just a month, the proportion of Asia fund managers building exposure in China jumped from 8% to 31%, according to a Bank of America survey published in mid-October,and the percentage of managers looking outside China for opportunities collapsed by a similar margin.
Yet markets have already pulled back 10% from the rally's highs thus far and third-quarter gross domestic product data on Friday showed the economy grew at the slowest pace since early 2023, leaving investors preparing to wait it out.
"The real crux of a second-leg higher in shares is if the government is able to stimulate consumer demand," said Willem Sels, global chief investment officer at HSBC Global Private Banking and Wealth.
"We think there will be more details coming through and the market is looking for a number on the size of fiscal stimulus to get excited. If we get that, then there is more room for another rise in stocks. We are still neutral."
China no longer publishes timely data showing money moving in and out of its equity markets but ebbing turnover and momentum point to investors giving the latest stimulus efforts the benefit of the doubt.
Cash that poured into U.S.-listed exchange-traded funds that invest in China has mostly stayed there, after the initial rush.
"People are still observing - there's no immediate profit-taking positions," said Henry Wu, head of Xtrackers U.S. products at DWS in New York, where the Xtrackers Harvest CSI 300 ASHR.N has drawn more than $2.2 billion in inflows since late September. "Investors are here to wait and see."
'BETTER LATE THAN WRONG'
Foreigners say that tech and e-commerce companies are attractive, with the latter exposed to improvement in consumption and offering a margin of safety in being both relatively cheap and generating a lot of cash.
"They were penalised for several years both for reality and perception reasons about government policies and regulations," said Nate Thooft, CIO for multi-asset at Manulife Investment Management.
"But our impression is that this time around China policymakerswant tohelp the market, and I think they're going to be less restrictive and ... some of the gap in valuation between equivalent country companies in the tech space could close."
Most are leaving real estate, where one-time powerhouse developers are cheap and swing wildly, to bolder speculators.
To be sure, there are plenty of investors wary of geopolitical risks or China's regulatory rollercoaster who have walked away from the mainland markets for good andothers who are sceptical about how strongly the economy can rebound.
Still, the mood has moved from aversion to China's stock market to watching, waiting, and gradually buying.
"We are not speculators, we are building an investment case," said Benjamin Melman, chief investment officer at Edmond de Rothschild Asset Management, which has held a neutral position on China for more than a year.
"It is better to be late than wrong."
China economy snapshot https://reut.rs/48aIbWG
Reporting by Dhara Ranasinghe, Naomi Rovnick and Alun John in London; Writing and additional reporting by Tom Westbrook in Singapore; Editing by Kim Coghill
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Penafian: Entiti XM Group menyediakan perkhidmatan pelaksanaan sahaja dan akses ke Kemudahan Dagangan Atas Talian, yang membolehkan sesorang melihat dan/atau menggunakan kandungan yang ada di dalam atau melalui laman web, tidak bertujuan untuk mengubah atau memperluas, juga tidak mengubah atau mengembangkannya. Akses dan penggunaan tersebut tertakluk kepada: (i) Terma dan Syarat; (ii) Amaran Risiko; dan Penafian Penuh. Oleh itu, kandungan sedemikian disediakan tidak lebih dari sekadar maklumat umum. Terutamanya, perlu diketahui bahawa kandungan Kemudahan Dagangan Atas Talian bukan permintaan, atau tawaran untuk melakukan transaksi dalam pasaran kewangan. Berdagang dalam mana-mana pasaran kewangan melibatkan tahap risiko yang besar terhadap modal anda.
Semua bahan yang diterbitkan di Kemudahan Dagangan Atas Talian kami bertujuan hanya untuk tujuan pendidikan/maklumat dan tidak mengandungi – dan tidak boleh dianggap mengandungi nasihat kewangan, cukai pelaburan atau dagangan dan cadangan, atau rekod harga dagangan kami, atau tawaran, atau permintaan untuk suatu transaksi dalam sebarang instrumen kewangan atau promosi kewangan yang tidak diminta kepada anda.
Sebarang kandungan pihak ketiga serta kandungan yang disediakan oleh XM, seperti pendapat, berita, penyelidikan, analisis, harga, maklumat lain atau pautan ke laman web pihak ketiga yang terdapat dalam laman web ini disediakan berdasarkan "seadanya" sebagai ulasan pasaran umum dan bukanlah nasihat pelaburan. Sesuai dengan apa-apa kandungan yang ditafsir sebagai penyelidikan pelaburan, anda mestilah ambil perhatian dan menerima bahawa kandungan tersebut tidak bertujuan dan tidak sediakan berdasarkan keperluan undang-undang yang direka untuk mempromosikan penyelidikan pelaburan bebas dan oleh itu, ia dianggap sebagai komunikasi pemasaran di bawah peraturan dan undang-undang yang berkaitan. SIla pastikan bahawa anda telah membaca dan memahami Notifikasi mengenai Penyelidikan Pelaburan Bukan Bebas dan Amaran Risiko mengenai maklumat di atas yang boleh diakses di sini.
