Meadows Financial Retains Bullish Outlook on Asian Assets

HONG KONG, November 29, 2017 (Newswire.com) - Investors need not be concerned that it may be too late to avail themselves of any meaningful upside potential in Asian equities. That’s the consensus at Meadows Financial, the Hong Kong, China-headquartered investment boutique which has reiterated its bullish expectations for the region’s bourses heading into 2018.

In a research note sent to institutional clients earlier this week, the firm says it expects developed Asia-Pacific markets to firm in the short to medium-term while it is confident that the region’s developing markets will continue to display the robust growth that has seen them comfortably outperform European equities, despite fears at the start of the year that tighter U.S. monetary policy could result in capital exiting risk assets and flowing into less risky U.S. treasuries.

We expect the upward trajectory in equities to continue well into 2018, particularly in technology. We're particularly looking forward to the debuts of several exciting tech sector IPOs in China, Singapore and Indonesia to provide additional impetus to the performance of our representative portfolio.

Vincent Tan, Executive Director, Meadows Financial

According to Peter Sinclair, who leads global equities management at Meadows Financial, the firm is expected to increase exposure to Asian stocks in 2018 citing encouraging overall economic performance and a notable increase in demand for more sophisticated investment products from the region’s burgeoning middle classes as key motives.

“Much of the bearishness we saw in early 2017 concerning the U.S. Federal Reserve’s plans for interest rates has proven unwarranted. Equities have surged ahead on a meaningful uptick in global economic growth and a sense that the measures taken by the central banks have finally begun to bear fruit,” explained Sinclair in the research note’s introduction.

“We expect the upward trajectory in equities to continue well into 2018, particularly in technology. We’re particularly looking forward to the debuts of several exciting tech sector IPOs in China, Singapore and Indonesia to provide additional impetus to the performance of our representative portfolio,” said Vincent Tan, Executive Director at Meadows Financial.

The firm’s expectations for further gains aren’t solely rooted in broader regional economic performance. Tan says Meadows Financial is also looking to the significant jump in demand for more sophisticated investment products from individuals and families seeking to accumulate and preserve wealth for the future.

Meadows Financial reports being encouraged by the increasing demand for products like exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and other pooled investments in the Asia Pacific region.

Up until recently, many personal investment and wealth management services have been offered by local subsidiaries of larger U.S. and European banking groups targeting high net worth individuals.

At the other end of the market, simplistic and fairly inflexible savings vehicles provided by homegrown bancassurance operations have been one of only a few ways that ordinary investors can access markets.

“We see the increasing uptake of these cutting-edge products channeling more capital into stocks over the short and medium-term. It’s an exciting time to be in the market and that’s clearly being reflected in the bullishness in global stocks in general and Asian stocks in particular,” concluded Tan. 

Source: Meadows Financial