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In our previous update, we briefly shared our outlook for 2025, and we maintain our view that market risks will be driven by three key factors: the uncertain interest rate trajectory in the US, elevated US equity valuations in the sectors that we monitor and heightened geopolitical risks globally. These factors are likely to result in higher volatility in equity markets compared to recent years. However, this does not mean that equity prices will drop precipitously. Instead, we simply believe a more cautious approach to positioning and stock picking is warranted.
The US equity market has benefited from the strength in its economy and leading position in artificial intelligence (“AI”) technologies. This has led to high earnings expectations being baked into stock valuations, which we find to be optimistic given the looming risk of tariffs and the ongoing cooling of the general economy. Some argue that the Trump administration will reduce corporate taxes to boost earnings and control interest rates despite inflation risks. Our view is that timing all these initiatives to benefit the US economy will be challenging and there will likely be knee-jerk reactions to any significant policy announcements, earnings misses and economic data surprises.
For ASEAN countries, while the “China + 1” narrative is beneficial, they may not be spared from US tariffs as Trump announced his attention to impose tariffs on close allies such as the EU and Canada. Additionally, recent US technology export regulations were tightened, and none of the ASEAN countries were included in the list of “US allies” who were granted unrestricted access to advanced semiconductors.
In other developed markets such as major EU countries and Japan, we believe that their economies are still struggling to pick-up meaningfully. Coupled with the ongoing geopolitical environment, we will continue to be selective in increasing exposure to these regions.
Among the countries we monitor, we believe that China could be a bright spot in 2025, provided the administration acts strongly and decisively. They have announced ambitious goals to stimulate the economy with no concrete actions yet, in our view. We will be monitoring their key policy meetings for actionable plans before significantly increasing our weighting in the region.
Related Market Outlooks
2025 February Market Outlook: Deepseek Shakes Up AI—Is China’s Tech Rebound Just Beginning?
The launch of Deepseek marks a notable development for China as the startup claims it is significantly more efficient than widespread models developed by US companies. The startup also claims to have developed the model with only US$ 6 million and has made their model publicly available for use globally. This stands in contrast to US technology firms, which have been spending billions of dollars. Additionally, the availability of Deepseek’s model has raised concerns about potential reductions in AI infrastructure investment.
2024 December Market Outlook: Balancing Caution and Opportunity Amid Global Economic Shifts
Recently, China has expressed increasing urgency to stabilize its property market and domestic consumption, through stronger-than-usual language from the administration. Given that these were mostly high-level statements, we remain skeptical on the announcement given the Chinese government’s hesitance to implement substantial economic stimulus in recent years.
2024 November Market Outlook: Balancing Chinese Stimulus and U.S. Political Shifts
The Chinese administration have announced their intention to rollout an additional RMB 6 trillion package to support the debt burden of local governments and China’s finance minister also gave forward guidance that they would be introducing new measures to further stabilize the property market. While the headline number of RMB 6 trillion seems substantial, ultimately it was not impressive as the debt swap is intended to occur gradually over the next 3 years. Furthermore, there is uncertainty over how the local governments will spur their respective economies once their debt position improves. A positive note is that there has been some initial rebound in property sales. However, we believe near-term equity valuations in China are likely to remain rangebound until further stimulus measures are announced given the modest earnings results so far.
2024 October Market Outlook: Hong Kong and China Stocks Await Policy Boost as AI Growth Persists in the US
Since the initial surge in the Hong Kong and Chinese stock market, significant profit taking has followed. Despite this, we maintain our view that company valuations in the region remains attractive. The main event that we are monitoring is towards the end of this month, where China holds their Politburo Standing Committee.
2024 September Market Outlook: Tech Stocks Face Headwinds as AI Valuations Come Under Scrutiny
Since the last newsletter, technology stocks continued to underperform as investors began to question the premium valuations that these companies command since the start of the artificial intelligence (“AI”) narrative. There is no doubt that AI will result in long-term productivity gains as more companies begin to announce standalone AI products. Additionally, continued improvements in AI hardware will likely accelerate development going forward.