Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
EMboldened interview - Confidence in emerging markets surges – HSBC Global Research
16 Plays4 years ago
HSBC’s Dr Murat Ulgen, Head of Emerging Markets Research, discusses the results of our latest EM Sentiment Survey - including recovery prospects, market trends, and ESG factors - with Piers Butler, Head of Research Direct. Disclaimers
To stay connected and to access free to view reports and videos from HSBC Global Research click here
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to HSBC Global Viewpoint
00:00:00
Speaker
This is HSBC Global Viewpoint, your window into the thinking, trends and issues shaping global banking and markets.
00:00:09
Speaker
Join us as we hear from industry leaders and HSBC experts on the latest insights and opportunities for your business.
00:00:17
Speaker
Thank you for listening.
Overview of Emerging Market Sentiment Survey
00:00:22
Speaker
Welcome everyone to this HSBC Global Research LinkedIn Live event.
00:00:26
Speaker
I'm Piers Butler, Global Head of Research Direct, connecting you to world-class research.
00:00:33
Speaker
And I'm really pleased to welcome today Dr. Murat Olgan, who is Head of Global Research for Emerging Markets, who is going to talk to us today about the Emerging Market Sentiment Survey, which HSBC Global Research launched last year.
00:00:49
Speaker
Before we take your questions, we're going to sort of give you a few edited highlights of the recent edition of the Emerging Market Sentiment Survey, which came out in January, after which there will be plenty of time for questions.
00:01:05
Speaker
You have the opportunity to put your questions into the LinkedIn Live event, and we will endeavor to give you some answers to them.
00:01:14
Speaker
But, Marat, welcome to the event.
00:01:17
Speaker
And before we kick off with some of the highlights of the survey, I wanted to ask you first to give us a bit of context about the survey.
00:01:24
Speaker
How broad and deep is this survey in measuring emerging market sentiment?
00:01:30
Speaker
Thank you very much, Piers.
00:01:30
Speaker
Yes, as you said, we have launched this survey in the middle of last year.
00:01:34
Speaker
It's a quarterly survey.
00:01:36
Speaker
So we had three editions so far, June and September 2020.
00:01:39
Speaker
And the last one was completed.
00:01:42
Speaker
And we announced the report in the beginning of January.
00:01:47
Speaker
We are essentially canvassing views of institutional investors who are investing in emerging markets across all asset classes.
00:01:54
Speaker
It's rates, credit, FX and equity.
00:01:56
Speaker
We also ask about ESG attributes and ESG approach into investing.
00:02:03
Speaker
And we are actually using an independent polling agency.
00:02:08
Speaker
So it's an independent survey.
00:02:10
Speaker
There are more than 40 questions in the survey.
00:02:13
Speaker
We try to get answers from institutional investors on their outlook about emerging market economies.
00:02:19
Speaker
economic trends like growth, inflation and also market trends across various asset classes plus their ESG approach.
Bullish Sentiment in Emerging Markets
00:02:27
Speaker
So the last survey was conducted between 16th of November to 7th of January and as mentioned we published the report in the middle of January.
00:02:37
Speaker
Thank you.
00:02:38
Speaker
So for this latest version of the survey, is it fair to say that it was quite a bullish survey?
00:02:46
Speaker
It is a very bullish sentiment indeed, based on the question actually, the first and foremost question, how do investors feel about emerging markets over the next three months?
00:02:55
Speaker
Nearly three quarters were bullish on the outlook of emerging markets and this is obviously a substantial improvement
00:03:02
Speaker
compared to the September survey, the previous one, when a little bit less than half of the investors were bullish about emerging markets.
00:03:09
Speaker
So, yes, I think the main message is pretty bullish consensus.
00:03:13
Speaker
We called it investors emboldened and feeling optimistic in investing emerging markets.
00:03:20
Speaker
So what's behind this bullishness?
00:03:22
Speaker
What's driving that?
00:03:25
Speaker
I think the most important driver is improving expectations about global economic outlook and emerging market growth outlook.
00:03:33
Speaker
Because we ask investors, how do they feel about the global economy?
00:03:37
Speaker
More than 60% believe the global economy is already recovering or will start recovering in the first half of this year.
00:03:45
Speaker
from the COVID shock, obviously, after massive economic cost we saw last year.
00:03:51
Speaker
But then specific to emerging markets, almost 90%, to be precise, 89% of the investors were expecting EM activity to accelerate over the next 12 months.
00:04:01
Speaker
I mean, there are obviously various reasons
00:04:03
Speaker
like the global liquidity backdrop, etc.
00:04:05
Speaker
But to us, the most important driver of this optimistic sentiment or this big improvement in sentiment for emerging markets should be the improving growth outlook or the expectations as such.
Regional Optimism and Asset Shifts
00:04:18
Speaker
So is this optimism uniform across the regions or are there regional disparities that are coming through?
00:04:26
Speaker
It's a very good question.
00:04:27
Speaker
I mean, it's obviously only the third survey, but there is a pattern.
00:04:32
Speaker
In the first two surveys, it was almost all about Asia.
00:04:36
Speaker
Investors were feeling a lot more comfortable.
00:04:39
Speaker
with the macro outlook of Asia and investing in Asia.
00:04:42
Speaker
But in this survey for the first time, we're seeing actually some rotation that investors actually becoming also comfortable investing in other regions, in particular Latin America.
00:04:51
Speaker
So the overweights in Latin America have increased a lot compared to the previous survey.
00:04:57
Speaker
So yes, indeed, there are some regional trends that we are picking up.
00:05:00
Speaker
Asia is still at this sort of front and center
00:05:04
Speaker
of investors optimism, but now people are interested in Latin America.
00:05:08
Speaker
It is actually featuring in their radar screen as well.
00:05:11
Speaker
Then comes Central Eastern Europe as another region that investors feel fairly optimistic about.
00:05:18
Speaker
Now, let's look at it in terms of asset classes, because again, there are some differences there as well, aren't there?
00:05:24
Speaker
Correct.
00:05:25
Speaker
Again, referring back to the previous surveys when 2020 brought so many uncertainties on economic and market outlook, investors were preferring kind of relatively safer assets across emerging markets, which is the hard currency debt.
00:05:40
Speaker
And then in September survey, interest has actually started to pick up for EM equities.
00:05:46
Speaker
And in this survey, which we published in January, equity optimism has taken another leap forward
00:05:53
Speaker
Now investors are really interested in EM equities and they're quite optimistic about the outlook, but there is another important trend in a change compared to previous surveys, EMFX.
00:06:04
Speaker
It has been a laggard asset class for many years, especially last year.
00:06:08
Speaker
We've seen negative returns in certain emerging market foreign exchange.
00:06:12
Speaker
But this time in this survey, when investors responded to the questions, we've seen a huge pickup in optimism about EMFX.
00:06:21
Speaker
As a matter of fact, those investors who responded expecting appreciation emerging market FX, they nearly doubled compared to the previous September survey in our latest January survey.
00:06:32
Speaker
Now there is another trend even in the relatively short time that this survey has been running which I think we ought to highlight and that is the question relating to ESG or environmental, social and governance factors.
00:06:45
Speaker
Can you tell us a little bit more about that?
Rise of ESG Investments in Emerging Markets
00:06:48
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:06:49
Speaker
So this is a trend we're picking up.
00:06:50
Speaker
I mean, as you mentioned, it's only the third survey and it's been less than a year.
00:06:55
Speaker
But even with that relatively short history, every quarter there is a very distinct pickup of investors who are engaging in ESG investment approach.
00:07:07
Speaker
We ask investors, do you currently run an ESG portfolio, either directly and indirectly?
00:07:12
Speaker
In the first June survey, it was only 30%.
00:07:15
Speaker
Then it went up to 39% in September survey.
00:07:17
Speaker
And in this final January survey, 50%.
00:07:21
Speaker
So half of the investors do actually run an ESG portfolio.
00:07:26
Speaker
They look at environmental, social, and governance attributes of investing in emerging markets in this survey, which is actually a huge pickup.
00:07:37
Speaker
I mean, they mentioned about different types of responsible investment activities.
00:07:42
Speaker
like reporting and disclosure, using ESG in stock weighting methodologies, engaging on ESG teams.
00:07:50
Speaker
But there is a clear and distinct pattern appears that investors are more and more engaged in ESG approach in investing in emerging markets.
00:08:00
Speaker
Well, that's very encouraging to hear.
00:08:02
Speaker
Right, so that's the edited highlights.
00:08:05
Speaker
And let's move to questions, keep them coming through.
00:08:09
Speaker
I'll just kick off one as we start to see them come through, just to sort of balance, I suppose, the optimism that's coming through from the survey is, Murat, tell us a little bit about
Concerns and Risks: COVID-19 and Inflation
00:08:22
Speaker
risks.
00:08:22
Speaker
What are investors worried about?
00:08:24
Speaker
What kind of risks do they see, nevertheless, despite this optimism?
00:08:28
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:08:29
Speaker
I mean, that's another question we asked.
00:08:30
Speaker
What's the biggest risk to emerging market outlook?
00:08:33
Speaker
and it's pretty much almost always it's COVID.
00:08:37
Speaker
I mean, it still is a major challenge and a headwind to economic activity.
00:08:41
Speaker
I mean, especially in this part of the world, you know, we have seen fresh restrictions very recently.
00:08:45
Speaker
So inevitably and understandably, emerging market investors still think COVID is still the biggest challenge to emerging market outlook and actually for global growth outlook for that matter.
00:08:56
Speaker
Then comes the risk of recession, major economies.
00:09:01
Speaker
which obviously partly related to COVID or, you know, to a large extent.
00:09:04
Speaker
What is interesting though is the third risk that is most frequently mentioned this time is inflation in major economies.
00:09:12
Speaker
I'm saying, because I'm underlining this because
00:09:14
Speaker
In the previous surveys, in the first two, inflation wasn't mentioned that often.
00:09:20
Speaker
Actually, in the first survey, not at all.
00:09:22
Speaker
But now investors believe inflation should be in their radar screen as a potential risk or an upset to this fairly optimistic emerging markets outlook.
00:09:33
Speaker
OK, so some questions are coming through, one of which is very topical and is what did the survey reveal about commodities?
00:09:42
Speaker
Were there any questions about that?
00:09:44
Speaker
Sure.
00:09:45
Speaker
I think the commodity outlook is sort of embedded in the survey.
00:09:49
Speaker
I mean, I believe the fact that, you know, emerging market investors are looking for an acceleration EM growth over the next 12 months is kind of related and pertinent of expecting a better commodity outlook.
Commodity Price Expectations and ESG Details
00:10:03
Speaker
It's a bit of indigenous.
00:10:05
Speaker
I would also say the rotation out of Asia is
00:10:08
Speaker
to Latin America, which is a broad commodity producing region, kind of also reveals that investors are looking for better commodity prices.
00:10:16
Speaker
I would also add the outlook for FX.
00:10:19
Speaker
And actually, when we ask about individual economies, Brazil comes a lot often as a response and clearly is a major commodity producer.
00:10:28
Speaker
I think the outlook for commodities is sort of embedded.
00:10:31
Speaker
in the questionnaire in various questions and responses from investors.
00:10:34
Speaker
And I would say, given the collective aggregate answers, the expectation is for the commodity outlook to remain good compared to last year or even improve further.
00:10:46
Speaker
Some questions coming through, maybe giving us a little bit more color on this ESG and a bit more granularity as to where that ESG interest is manifesting itself in in terms of
00:11:00
Speaker
countries and companies.
00:11:02
Speaker
Is there any more that you can tell us about that?
00:11:04
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:11:05
Speaker
I mean, as we mentioned also in our survey report, usually ESG is seen to be an area which is more of interest to develop market investors.
00:11:14
Speaker
But actually, our survey shows there is an increasing interest of emerging market investors to consider and engage
00:11:21
Speaker
into ESG, environmental, social and governance aspects of investing in emerging markets.
00:11:27
Speaker
As mentioned, there are certain responsible investment activities that investors are most interested about.
00:11:34
Speaker
These are like integration of ESG into stock picking and weighting methodologies, engagement on ESG teams,
00:11:41
Speaker
It is also reporting and disclosure of ESG activities.
00:11:46
Speaker
But we also ask, you know, as you mentioned previously about the risk on ESG side, we also ask investors, what is your biggest risk perception when it comes to individual ESG areas?
00:11:57
Speaker
On the environmental side, people say it's climate change is the biggest risk that they consider in their investment activities.
00:12:04
Speaker
On the social side, it's inequality.
00:12:06
Speaker
And on governance, it's protection of minority shareholder rights.
00:12:12
Speaker
How the question is on, I guess it's a broader question about HSBC Global Research, but how are we integrating these ESG considerations into our research?
00:12:23
Speaker
How is that affecting the way you are looking at things?
00:12:27
Speaker
I mean, we obviously have a very comprehensive ESG research and great teams located around the world, in Hong Kong, in London.
00:12:35
Speaker
You know, they regularly publish on ESG teams, you know, especially climate change.
00:12:44
Speaker
And, you know, they have various reports where they actually detail how ESG should be a consideration, a part of the consideration,
00:12:52
Speaker
of investment activities.
00:12:53
Speaker
And it's not only equities.
00:12:54
Speaker
I think in fixed income, there is all sorts of topic of green bonds.
00:12:58
Speaker
It is also spilling over into sovereign research, even local markets.
00:13:03
Speaker
I mean, I would say, you know, HSBC has a very comprehensive and wide research, you know, top caliber analysts who are regularly publishing on ESG teams.
00:13:12
Speaker
What is most relevant?
00:13:14
Speaker
Is it like the fragile planet?
00:13:16
Speaker
You know, is it, you know, sort of the change in
00:13:20
Speaker
the habitat of individual countries, etc., which markets are at rest.
00:13:24
Speaker
And it's becoming an even more sort of a widespread topic across emerging markets.
00:13:28
Speaker
So we publish on the main teams, but we also publish on recommendations when it comes to investing.
COVID-19 Challenges and Regional Resilience
00:13:36
Speaker
So switching to sort of COVID, the COVID-19 factor, which you mentioned in your introductory remarks,
00:13:45
Speaker
Is the risk of COVID proportionately greater in emerging markets than it is in established markets?
00:13:54
Speaker
I think, you know, this is a bit mixed because, you know, clearly when you look at parts of the world where the second and third waves are a lot more contained, it's more sort of Asia, China.
00:14:07
Speaker
And clearly, you know, this is the region which has normalized first and, you know, restored its supply chains, restored its production, doing well when it comes to exports and manufacturing, helping the rest of the world to,
00:14:20
Speaker
with the products that the rest of the world needs during lockdown, like consumer electronics or healthcare equipment, etc.
00:14:27
Speaker
But on the other hand, the inoculation programs are running much faster in the other part of the world, in the Western world, be it UK or US.
00:14:35
Speaker
and other emerging market countries in this time zone.
00:14:39
Speaker
I think it's a bit mixed, but I think it's fair to say that when investors look at emerging markets, they clearly, especially when it comes to the growth expectation, the growth outlook, they clearly factor in which countries are handling COVID better in terms of their containment measures and which countries are ahead when it comes to inoculation programs.
00:15:00
Speaker
And I think it's quite consistent answer
00:15:03
Speaker
that you know China, Asia actually leads when it comes to expectations of growth acceleration over the next 12 months.
00:15:10
Speaker
This has been very consistent across all editions of the survey, the past three editions and this one as well.
00:15:16
Speaker
But what's interesting is there are a couple of countries making it into the sort of fastest accelerating countries list for the first time this survey like India, like Brazil.
00:15:27
Speaker
which also tells you, you know, the outlook for the economy, not only from a COVID perspective, but elsewhere, you know, Brazil has launched its inoculation program in India.
00:15:37
Speaker
The cases are falling sharply.
00:15:38
Speaker
So it is a major concentration.
00:15:40
Speaker
But I would say, Piers, it's really mixed.
00:15:42
Speaker
I mean, you have to look at, you know, how countries are dealing with containment, but you also have to look at what's happening with new cases and the vaccination programs as well.
00:15:52
Speaker
Okay, let's switch to regional differences.
00:15:55
Speaker
There's a question here as to why has the Middle East been kind of left behind in this kind of bullish sentiment recovery?
00:16:03
Speaker
What are the factors behind that, do you think?
Middle East Sentiment and Global Policy Impacts
00:16:07
Speaker
I mean, I have to say I was slightly surprised to see that result, especially in an environment where oil prices are picking up pretty sharply.
00:16:14
Speaker
I mean, my own humble explanation is investors are looking and obviously there's an aggregated results.
00:16:20
Speaker
We only see the aggregated results.
00:16:21
Speaker
I think they're looking at probably some value propositions elsewhere, like the laggard regions.
00:16:28
Speaker
I mean, Latin American equities in effects, they were laggard in 2020.
00:16:32
Speaker
But parts of Middle East have held up relatively well.
00:16:35
Speaker
I mean, GCC, Middle East, major countries there, Saudi, they have pretty strong macro balances, very high external assets that they can deploy, they can help when it comes to fiscal loosening.
00:16:49
Speaker
I would say investors are looking perhaps a little bit towards other areas which were left behind, so to speak, last year.
00:16:56
Speaker
You know, not that defensive, but more like what is the value proposition?
00:17:01
Speaker
And hence, you know, my own feeling is they moved a lot more towards Latin America in the survey.
00:17:07
Speaker
Now, question comes sort of connected to COVID, but it's the policy response.
00:17:12
Speaker
So we've obviously seen very strong policy responses across the world.
00:17:17
Speaker
In some respects, people are saying there's almost too much liquidity sloshing around and is that going to cause inflation?
00:17:27
Speaker
I mean, how do you see the policy response evolving from here?
00:17:32
Speaker
Sure.
00:17:33
Speaker
I mean, obviously we have seen massive relaxation of monetary and fiscal policies all around the world.
00:17:38
Speaker
It's not only emerging markets, developed markets, and then actually emerging markets follow SWEAT.
00:17:44
Speaker
And this is raised borrowing requirements all around the world.
00:17:47
Speaker
So in that sense,
00:17:49
Speaker
you know, perhaps the fiscal policy response will be a lot more muted this year.
00:17:54
Speaker
And obviously that also assumes that the COVID issues will be overcome as the year advances, as the year goes by, as the vaccination programs are rolled out.
00:18:03
Speaker
What's interesting is the monetary policy.
00:18:05
Speaker
And obviously at the start of the year, there were a lot of questions from investors, especially with the volatility in U.S. Treasury markets.
00:18:12
Speaker
So what's going to happen to EM monetary policy outlook?
00:18:15
Speaker
Now, that obviously ties into not only growth but inflation picture too.
00:18:20
Speaker
You know, we have referred to it in our opening remarks.
00:18:24
Speaker
Inflation is now in radar screen of investors.
00:18:27
Speaker
As a matter of fact, two-thirds of investors in this survey, they think that inflation will be higher across emerging markets.
00:18:34
Speaker
over the next 12 months.
00:18:35
Speaker
This is the highest rate so far among the three surveys.
00:18:38
Speaker
But what's important is we also ask investors, so do you think that interest rates will change?
00:18:43
Speaker
And more than 70% say interest rates actually will remain broadly unchanged in the near term.
00:18:49
Speaker
So even though inflation is a major consideration and might have implications on monetary policy and policy outlook going forward, I think at the moment, investors broadly believe it's not to an extent or a degree
00:19:02
Speaker
that should cause a change in the monetary policy outlook of EM center banks and they will probably keep interest rates broadly stable at this, you know, record or near record low levels.
Risks and Optimism in Emerging Markets
00:19:15
Speaker
So that's a good segue into the question on equities.
00:19:19
Speaker
It's obviously the asset class of choice in this sentiment recovery.
00:19:25
Speaker
Is that likely to continue or what could get in the way of the continued rally in equities?
00:19:31
Speaker
Thank you.
00:19:32
Speaker
In every survey we ask, we ask lots of questions about equities, but two specific questions, which to me are very important.
00:19:38
Speaker
One of them is, do you expect emerging market equities to be higher, lower, or broadly the same in the next three months?
00:19:45
Speaker
And the second question is, do you expect emerging market equities to outperform developed market equities?
00:19:50
Speaker
Now, as mentioned, EM equity sentiment has taken another leap forward because 84% of investors are actually looking for higher EM equity valuations over the next three months.
00:20:03
Speaker
And then full 75% expect EM equities to do better or outperform developed market equities.
00:20:09
Speaker
That's understandable with the improvement of sentiment because last year EM equities were laggard.
00:20:14
Speaker
They underperformed EM equities.
00:20:16
Speaker
It has only started late last year.
00:20:19
Speaker
and also with the leadership of China, Asia.
00:20:21
Speaker
But broadly speaking, it's been years that EM equities have underperformed.
00:20:25
Speaker
But this time, it seems like tables have turned.
00:20:27
Speaker
This improvement sentiment already started in September, but we've seen another big advance in terms of a positive outlook for EM equities as far as the survey outcome goes.
00:20:39
Speaker
I wanted to come back to ESG.
00:20:43
Speaker
There's a bit of a survey that sort of drills down a little bit more about the specific things that investors are actually concerned about when they're starting to look at the ESG factors.
00:20:53
Speaker
Can you perhaps sort of give us a bit more about that?
00:20:57
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:20:58
Speaker
I mean, I can give a bit more details.
00:21:00
Speaker
And, you know, as mentioned earlier, we have a fantastic ESG team and research.
00:21:04
Speaker
So, you know, anybody who is interested, they can get in touch with our analysts, with our strategists.
00:21:08
Speaker
But we do ask investors' perception about major ESG risks.
00:21:15
Speaker
I mentioned the first one.
00:21:16
Speaker
Perhaps I can detail it a little bit further on the environmental side.
00:21:20
Speaker
People are worried about climate change, but also extreme weather events and air pollution.
00:21:26
Speaker
I think those are the top risk perceptions when it comes to ESG.
00:21:29
Speaker
And these are the areas where investors are increasingly more taken into account when they make their investment decisions.
00:21:36
Speaker
On the social side, I've mentioned about inequality, which is by far the biggest risk perception, but it's also health and safety.
00:21:43
Speaker
which is nearly 25% of all responses, one quarter.
00:21:47
Speaker
I think that is important, which should be taken into account.
00:21:50
Speaker
And finally, on the governance side, I mentioned about protection of shareholder rights, but it's also audit process.
00:21:56
Speaker
26% of the investors, they said audit process are quite important.
00:22:00
Speaker
And this is the area when we take into account, when we look at the investment decision from a governance angle.
00:22:07
Speaker
So in terms of the outlooks, there's a big question that's just come in which might need a bit of breaking down is what about the outlook for
Improving Sentiment Towards Africa
00:22:19
Speaker
Africa?
00:22:19
Speaker
So I realize that's encompassing quite a broad area, but any sort of general thoughts that are coming out of the survey on that region?
00:22:28
Speaker
I think there is.
00:22:29
Speaker
I think we've seen it in the slides that there is an improvement in sentiment towards Africa.
00:22:36
Speaker
Obviously, when we conduct the survey, it's all around the world, by the way.
00:22:40
Speaker
We try to pick investors almost equally representative of major geographies, even Latin America and Asia.
00:22:47
Speaker
But what we picked in the survey, it's also Africa where investors are going overweight.
00:22:52
Speaker
So we ask them, are you overweight, underweight or neutral in the regions you invest?
00:22:58
Speaker
And there is a pickup in overweights in Africa.
00:23:01
Speaker
I mentioned the first three regions like Asia, Latin America, and then Central Eastern Europe.
00:23:05
Speaker
But actually, Africa overweights are pretty close to Central Eastern Europe.
00:23:09
Speaker
So that's the fourth region where investors are more interested to invest.
00:23:12
Speaker
So yes, there is a rising and improving sentiment there as well.
00:23:16
Speaker
I think that should be taken into account.
00:23:17
Speaker
But obviously, it's only representative of the investors who respond and invest in that region.
00:23:25
Speaker
Just as a quick follow-up on that, is there any divides between North and Southern Africa?
00:23:32
Speaker
I mean, any particular region stand out from that perspective?
00:23:36
Speaker
I mean, we don't go into that granularity.
00:23:39
Speaker
I mean, it's already a pretty big survey.
00:23:40
Speaker
We asked more than 40 questions to investors.
00:23:43
Speaker
We try to keep it at broad regions, you know, Central Eastern Europe, Asia, Latin America, Middle East and Africa.
00:23:51
Speaker
But, you know, every now and then certain countries stand out.
00:23:54
Speaker
We definitely mentioned it in the survey.
00:23:56
Speaker
I should say in this survey, the country that really stands out, aside from
00:24:01
Speaker
Asia and China, which is consistent that investors feel comfortable, was Brazil.
00:24:05
Speaker
Among the major large EM economies, Brazil has been cited pretty often.
00:24:10
Speaker
Even though we don't have that granulity, if any country really stands out and comes up frequently in the answers, we actually highlight those.
00:24:19
Speaker
So just want to remind people that we'll be finishing in five minutes.
00:24:22
Speaker
So please submit your final questions before we keep the time and wrap this up.
00:24:29
Speaker
So Piers, perhaps I can mention one area which is, you know, frequently referred to us and people ask.
00:24:37
Speaker
I think it's a very fair question because people say, I mean, you know, the investors are so bullish, but we've already seen, you know, markets doing well, especially late last year.
00:24:46
Speaker
So, you know,
00:24:47
Speaker
don't you think disorder reflected in markets?
00:24:49
Speaker
I think that's a fair question, but in this survey, we also ask some technical aspects of investing, like what's your risk appetite?
00:24:58
Speaker
What are your cash levels, for instance?
00:25:00
Speaker
And there are really interesting outcomes.
00:25:02
Speaker
We do ask investors, what is your current risk appetite to invest in EM from zero to 10?
00:25:08
Speaker
Zero being no appetite at all to invest in EM, and 10 means
00:25:12
Speaker
full force investing in EM, full risk.
00:25:16
Speaker
The weighted average score is 6.9, which has actually improved from September, which was 6.5.
00:25:23
Speaker
But when I look at this big jump in positive sentiment, perhaps this hasn't been completely translated into actual risk-taking behavior because there was only a modest improvement in the weighted average score.
00:25:35
Speaker
But another evidence to it is cash levels.
00:25:36
Speaker
I mean, yes, the sentiment is very bullish, very buoyant, but investors still have significant amount of cash.
00:25:43
Speaker
Nearly half of the investors have in excess of 5% cash in their portfolios.
00:25:48
Speaker
To be precise, it's 48%.
00:25:49
Speaker
And the previous survey, it was 53%.
00:25:52
Speaker
Still, nearly half of the investors have significant amount of cash.
00:25:55
Speaker
So that to me is quite interesting.
00:25:57
Speaker
I mean, on the one hand, you might argue huge improvement in sentiment, but there's a lot of cash that investors are keeping.
00:26:03
Speaker
And the final thing is we also ask investors, what is your intention to do with this cash?
00:26:08
Speaker
Are you going to decrease it, increase it, or keep it broadly the same?
00:26:11
Speaker
36% said, I'm planning to decrease my cash.
00:26:15
Speaker
in the near term and this is actually higher than 30 percent in September and only 11 percent said I'm actually decreased, I'm actually increasing my cash.
00:26:23
Speaker
So the amount of investors who are planning to deploy more cash are far ahead of investors who are planning to increase their cash.
00:26:31
Speaker
So the point I'm trying to make, yes obviously you know there is a positive sentiment
00:26:36
Speaker
when the survey was conducted and the report was published, and we've already seen good move in the markets.
00:26:42
Speaker
But the interesting technical dynamic behind this, there is still a lot of cash that people can deploy.
00:26:49
Speaker
Thank you.
00:26:50
Speaker
So let's maybe just finish on the fact that we've obviously had a US presidential election and we're starting to see a new administration putting through or trying to put through new
Impact of US Election on Emerging Markets
00:27:01
Speaker
legislation.
00:27:01
Speaker
From what you've seen of some of the proposed and intended legislation, is that likely to have an impact on emerging markets?
00:27:09
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:27:09
Speaker
And actually, for the first time in the survey, we inserted a question about the impact of the outcome of US presidential election.
00:27:15
Speaker
Now,
00:27:16
Speaker
Obviously, the survey was closed on 7th of January and we had the Georgia Senate runoff on 5th of January.
00:27:24
Speaker
So most of the survey was conducted without knowing the outcome.
00:27:28
Speaker
But we presented investors with options, with alternative scenarios.
00:27:32
Speaker
What is quite interesting to me is nearly a quarter of the investors actually thought it would be negative for emerging markets.
00:27:41
Speaker
Joe Biden presidency and the Democrats also control the Senate.
00:27:44
Speaker
I was quite surprised to see that.
00:27:46
Speaker
So it's a blue sweep scenario where investors actually, I mean, they're broadly bullish, but a quarter said this could be negative.
00:27:53
Speaker
My own interpretation of this is there are some mixed signals obviously coming from that and markets have been under the influence of those already in the first few weeks.
00:28:02
Speaker
On the one hand, it's the prospects of a much bigger fiscal package and stimulus from the US, which would mean that emerging markets can actually export a lot more to the US commodities
00:28:14
Speaker
manufactured products, technology products.
00:28:16
Speaker
And that's great.
00:28:16
Speaker
That's positive for EM.
00:28:18
Speaker
But on the other hand, if this would lead higher U.S. rates and volatile U.S. rates, that would be negative for emerging markets.
00:28:24
Speaker
I think to me, it was sort of the, you know, my understanding was sort of the split views on these two areas that people were trying to reconcile.
00:28:33
Speaker
And that was a slightly interesting outcome of the survey response.
00:28:37
Speaker
Thank you.
00:28:38
Speaker
Murat, on that note, I wanted to thank you for taking part in this HSBC Global Research LinkedIn
Concluding Insights and Future Surveys
00:28:43
Speaker
Live event.
00:28:43
Speaker
Fascinating insight into the HSBC Emerging Market Sentiment Survey.
00:28:49
Speaker
Obviously, another one is coming soon, so watch out for the results of that.
00:28:54
Speaker
We will post the edited highlights
00:28:58
Speaker
If you have any questions on this event or anything to do with HSBC Global Research, one very simple email to remember, askresearch at hsbc.com.
00:29:10
Speaker
And then finally, if you want to hear me interview Murat and some of his colleagues, we do a weekly COVID-19 brief, which is available, free to listen to, no passwords on either Apple, Spotify or other podcast apps.
00:29:24
Speaker
With that, many thanks for joining us and I hope we will be connecting with you soon.
00:29:32
Speaker
Thank you for listening today.
00:29:34
Speaker
This has been HSBC Global Viewpoint Banking and Markets.
00:29:38
Speaker
For more information about anything you heard in this podcast or to learn about HSBC's global services and offerings, please visit gbm.hsbc.com.