2017

Our Senior Portfolio Manager in New York, who specializes in natural resource equity funds, explains the outlook for oil prices.

Asia ex-Japan (AxJ) equities returned 6.2% in US Dollar (USD) terms, outperforming MSCI World. Singapore, Hong Kong and Chinese equities outperformed while Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand lagged.

US Treasury (UST) yields ended higher in January as weaker-than-expected payroll data led markets to moderate their forecasts for Federal Reserve (Fed) rate hikes in 2017.

Trump...that is the first and last time we will comment on the US president in this update, given the proliferation of such commentary in all main stream media at present.

Given the challenges, why bother?

Our head of Global Strategy in New York analyzes and forecasts the developments of major topics arising from the new Administration.

Credit markets are expected to have another positive year. We expect economic growth in Asia to be stable but see some potential downside risks.

Global economic, credit and interest rate cycles are becoming desynchronised. In this paper, we introduce Nikko AM’s first generation default probability model for corporates.

In-depth report: Economic growth in Asia is expected to remain broadly stable in 2017. While there will be greater external uncertainties as well as country-specific challenges, Asian economies are, on balance, better equipped to deal with external pressures compared to a few years back.

Our Senior Portfolio Manager for Emerging Market Debt in London forecasts that in 2017, this asset class could well match 2016’s achievement.