Media365
Fund managers investing in Asian and emerging markets added mainland Chinese and Taiwanese stocks to their portfolios in February and March, while cutting their exposure to South Korean equities, according to HSBC Holdings.
The reallocation also came at the expense of Indian stocks during the period, with the country’s weighting in Asian funds hitting a new low, HSBC analysts Prerna Garg and Herald van der Linde said in a report on Tuesday, without giving details. The report was based on data from 400 funds with a cumulative US$730 billion in assets under management.
The funds increased holdings of upstream energy producers and battery makers in mainland China over the past two months, while cutting memory-related stocks in South Korea, the report said.
In Taiwan, fund managers bought tech stocks such as precision measurement equipment maker Chroma ATE and chip designer Aspeed, countering the fallout from the unwinding of positions in Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC), the report said. In India, global emerging-market funds sold stocks of large private-sector banks and added holdings of state-owned lenders and leading tech company Infosys.
The fund flows may explain why China’s yuan-denominated stocks have held up so well since the oil shock, with overseas investors seeking refuge in Chinese assets because of their relative insulation from disruption to global energy supplies.
