Speaker 1: Let's get to our guests. Don't Chend, head of Asia
Speaker 1: macro Economic Research at picked At Wealth Management. So a
Speaker 1: lot of investors are waiting on a FED pivot, and
Speaker 1: so we had the FED minutes and there was a
Speaker 1: little bit of a change because now we understand that
Speaker 1: there's uh the futures markets are suggesting a stronger likelihood
Speaker 1: of a fifty basis point high coming up rather than
Speaker 1: seventy five. So you might interpret that as the beginning
Speaker 1: of a FED pivot. So I think we needed to
Speaker 1: actually trying to define what is the FED pivot. Well,
Speaker 1: we think that um, I mean you really look at
Speaker 1: you need to look at the US economy as a
Speaker 1: big picture, and at this point we think that the
Speaker 1: labor market continued to be very very strong. And also
Speaker 1: you're looking at the inflation numbers, even though they possibly
Speaker 1: have already picked with still at over a percent kind
Speaker 1: of level. So at this juncture, I think it's very
Speaker 1: difficult for the FED just to claim victory saying that
Speaker 1: we have got the mission accomplished. So we think they're
Speaker 1: still quite some amount of tightening to do going forward.
Speaker 1: So some accounts of tightening, including I guess the fact
Speaker 1: that you don't see them dialing back anytime soon. When
Speaker 1: that does happen, you know, what kind of moved to
Speaker 1: risk assets do we see? And I guess what kind
Speaker 1: of vulnerability could be market? Well, we think that's you know,
Speaker 1: the first wave of massive selff in the market probably
Speaker 1: reflects the changing monetary conditions and so on, which had
Speaker 1: a big impact on the you know, corporate valuations. But
Speaker 1: at this moment, usually look at the corporate earnings. They're
Speaker 1: still holding up pretty well. So we we need to
Speaker 1: be very very careful looking at you know, corporate earnings
Speaker 1: going forward when the economy actually really show showing signs
Speaker 1: of slowing down and actually have an impact on corporate
Speaker 1: earnings growth. Yeah. I like that question from Juliet because
Speaker 1: I think it's still up in the air once we
Speaker 1: get a pivot um whether the market will have already moved,
Speaker 1: you know, and you might actually go the other direction.
Speaker 1: It's it's uh, it's perilous sometimes moving with these markets.
Speaker 1: Because we had all these FED speakers out there just
Speaker 1: talking about how tough the Fed still needs to be
Speaker 1: to get a handle on inflation. The SMP rally nine
Speaker 1: since the last FED meeting, So it does it does
Speaker 1: set up as kind of interesting going forward. Just a
Speaker 1: very quick pivot to China because that's another big area
Speaker 1: of concern in the markets. Is China moving toward a
Speaker 1: second half recovery or still stumbling. Well, we think the
Speaker 1: worst time property is over, because the worst time, as
Speaker 1: we see it, is that when the entire city of
Speaker 1: Shanghai was locked down. That was back in you know,
Speaker 1: April June, April two June, that kind of period. But
Speaker 1: at this point, we think the recovery is very, very
Speaker 1: bumpy because you still have a lot of kind of
Speaker 1: arbitrary restrictions that can lead to disruption from time to time.
Speaker 1: And at the same time, the situations in the property
Speaker 1: sectors seem to get worse instead of better. So that's
Speaker 1: so you're saying the second half covering in China is stumbling,
Speaker 1: and that's pretty much on par with what we're seeing
Speaker 1: from a number of analyst. Goldman cutting their China GDP
Speaker 1: forecast too for this year to three pc from three
Speaker 1: point three. But longer term, tell us why you've downgraded
Speaker 1: your forecast for China over the next five years. Well,
Speaker 1: we think there's a couple of factors. The most important
Speaker 1: fundamentally looking at the Chinese economy slowdown that is because
Speaker 1: of changing you know, Chinese demographic structure. And one direct
Speaker 1: implication of that is that, you know, the the younger
Speaker 1: population or the younger urban population that has been growing
Speaker 1: very very fast over the past decades. Now they're definitely
Speaker 1: slowing down and we're seeing you know, this means that
Speaker 1: a reduction in the housing demand in China, which has
Speaker 1: already shown up here, and given on top of that
Speaker 1: you have the government regulation that really really put a
Speaker 1: lot of pains in the sector. So we expect that
Speaker 1: the slowdown in property sector is going to be a
Speaker 1: main drag to Chinese growth over the next few years.
Speaker 1: And another very important factor is increasing regulations in a
Speaker 1: lot of new industries, where previously those companies really growing
Speaker 1: without any boundary, without any constraint. Now they are facing
Speaker 1: a new set of constraints, and we think they're grocery
Speaker 1: will be slowing down. So all those factors lead to
Speaker 1: our downgrade of longer term Chinese grocer rate. If we
Speaker 1: take a very broad look at global growth going forward,
Speaker 1: particularly over longer term, you mentioned this great divergence, and
Speaker 1: this is a mismatch between debt and your ability to
Speaker 1: grow because of higher levels of inflation. Explain well that
Speaker 1: I think it's a very important thing that we really
Speaker 1: need to take a look at. On the one hand,
Speaker 1: you're saying that over the past decades, the governments are
Speaker 1: accumulating a lot of a lot of debts, and a
Speaker 1: lot of those debts actually were supported by the ever
Speaker 1: decreasing interest rate, so that government actually can service those debts.
Speaker 1: But potentially we're actually getting into a new region with
Speaker 1: structurally higher inflation, and we're saying that central bank are
Speaker 1: going to push up the interest rate even though they're
Speaker 1: going to pivot as we just discussed earlier, but the
Speaker 1: longer term, we think that they're going to be higher
Speaker 1: than where we work, you know, prior to the pandemic.
Speaker 1: And this is going to put a lot of trouble
Speaker 1: on some governments where you know, they have high reliance
Speaker 1: on that. And we were just looking at the broader
Speaker 1: d M world, particularly some of the European countries. I
Speaker 1: think there's good examples. China is another example, and we're
Speaker 1: going to have to face it. So this we think
Speaker 1: we'll lead to potentially financial instability ahead energy costal the
Speaker 1: energy crisis, if you want to put it that way,
Speaker 1: is something that we're focusing on very much globally too.
Speaker 1: And you're saying that the global economy could face a
Speaker 1: structural increase in the direct cost of energy. How do
Speaker 1: I guess governments get around this? You know, what sort
Speaker 1: of further moves do we need to see in terms
Speaker 1: of carbon pricing? Well, of course, and the carbon pricing
Speaker 1: is a market mechanism trying to correct this externality. But
Speaker 1: again related to what is said, you know, climate change
Speaker 1: is definitely something that the governments have to address, but
Speaker 1: to address that requires a huge amount of investments. And
Speaker 1: on top of that you just mentioned we have direct
Speaker 1: higher you know, higher direct cost of energies. All those
Speaker 1: actually tend to increase government spending, especially when the government
Speaker 1: trying to subsidize the household sector, and that actually add
Speaker 1: to the problem with just discussed. Yeah. So so if
Speaker 1: if higher levels of inflation are going to um lead
Speaker 1: to higher interest rates and that's going to put a
Speaker 1: crimp on on countries that have high debt, it begs
Speaker 1: the question, what are the countries that have low debt
Speaker 1: that I can invest in over the next five years
Speaker 1: and sleep will at night. We're looking at a selected
Speaker 1: group of emerging markets. They are still on a at
Speaker 1: least on a relative basis at center food. So for example,
Speaker 1: you look at the India and India still have a
Speaker 1: pretty low government detuty DP ratio and some other you know,
Speaker 1: select it e M country in Southeast Asia. We think
Speaker 1: that you know, for this region, of this group of countries,
Speaker 1: probably at least on this regard, we think they are
Speaker 1: in a much better position. Alright, Great to have you
Speaker 1: with us, Strong Shan, head of Asia Macroeconomic researcher Pick
Speaker 1: Day Wealth Management, in our Hong Kong studio here on
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Daybreak Asia