March 2021: Thoughts on Valuation, Oil, and Silver Demand

Download PDF: monthly_202103Download Part I. World’s Equity Valuation One year after the Covid-19-induced market crash, global equity market has gone through a V-shaped recovery with stock market in many countries breaking record high level amid ample monetary and fiscal stimulus. The U.S. market valuation – now trading at cyclically-adjusted P/E (CAPE) of 32 times –ContinueContinue reading “March 2021: Thoughts on Valuation, Oil, and Silver Demand”

End of Year Chart Update

Download PDF: 202012_end-of-year-chart-updateDownload With the year almost ending and asset prices have rebounded strongly, we are becoming increasingly cautious on adding position to our core portfolio holdings and prefer to stay on the sideline until the next correction, at the risk of missing further upside moves. Technical and valuation point to an overbought and overvaluedContinueContinue reading “End of Year Chart Update”

Retail Mania: Short Tesla Thesis

The price rally this year on tech and leading hot stocks have been phenomenal. Investors and sell-side analyst price target have been blown away by the stock performance, driven mostly by retail trader’s purchase, as could be seen from data provided by robintrack (https://robintrack.net/popularity_changes). The website is a useful proxy for mania candidate and retailContinueContinue reading “Retail Mania: Short Tesla Thesis”

August 2020: Gathering Thoughts and Some Investment Ideas

Download PDF: monthly_202008Download The Money Flow: How the Money Goes Around From a macro perspective, there is only three players that drive the economy and financial markets in a country: households, private corporations (including banks) and the government. Each player’s action impacts the other and altogether they drive the economic machine of supply and demand,ContinueContinue reading “August 2020: Gathering Thoughts and Some Investment Ideas”

World Country Valuation

Even as world equity has rebounded from its March’s low, many stocks are still cheap relative to its historical valuation. Book value multiple remains depressed as earnings multiple stayed at its historical average, as profitability declined significantly this year for majority of the market. Our three main top pick markets, Mexico, Turkey and Chile, remainContinueContinue reading “World Country Valuation”

Revisiting Our View on Brazil, Mexico, Turkey, and South Africa

Download PDF: revisiting-latam-and-emea-countriesDownload Brazil: Negative Outlook Valuation is dearer than the average EM countries, although the rout has knocked out excessive valuation for Brazilian stocks. Book value multiple has indeed declined from 2.3x to 1.8x currently, but weak profitability due to depressed commodity prices has translated into an expensive forward earnings multiple at 14x, whichContinueContinue reading “Revisiting Our View on Brazil, Mexico, Turkey, and South Africa”

Equity Signposts, Commodity Rebound and Chip Wars

Download PDF: turning-point-in-the-commodity-cycleDownload 5 Signposts for Global Equity Recovery The decline in DXY of late has arguably help global equity grind higher amid easing financial condition. For long, we have been highlighting the widening valuation between U.S. equity and the rest of the world, which has gone much cheaper post-COVID19 correction. In-line with previous crisisContinueContinue reading “Equity Signposts, Commodity Rebound and Chip Wars”

Indonesia: An In-Depth Analysis

Download PDF: the-investment-case-for-indonesian-equitiesDownload Preparing the Groundwork for A Takeoff Indonesia’s macro profile has significantly improved in the past decade despite still running fiscal and current account deficit. First, government spending has been reoriented toward building human and capital stock, supported by the country’s high savings rate, while public debt level remained among the lowest acrossContinueContinue reading “Indonesia: An In-Depth Analysis”

Assessing the Risk in EM Countries

Download PDF: monthly_202006Download Various quarantine measures imposed across EM countries to curb the spread of COVID-19 has put government, corporate and household at an unprecedented amount of pressure. Unlike in U.S. and Europe, where outsized government fiscal stimulus is being rolled-out to help consumers and corporates to weather liquidity pressure during the lockdown period, theContinueContinue reading “Assessing the Risk in EM Countries”

Emerging Market Equities: Betting on the Underdog

Download PDF: Monthly_202005_Betting On the Underdog Reflection on the Past Decade  The financial market is characterized by the ebb and flow “leader” and “laggard” over time. The last decade was marked by the strong dollar cycle and boom in fast-growing technology stocks. In hindsight, the weak post-crisis growth outside U.S. and Fed’s tighter monetary policyContinueContinue reading “Emerging Market Equities: Betting on the Underdog”