Equity market: Why we are bullish on China

Jonathan Garner
Chief Asia & emerging market equity strategist at Morgan Stanley

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Jakarta / Mon, March 27, 2017 / 10:57 am

Equity market: Why we are bullish on China

Chinese 100-yuan (RMB) bank notes being counted at a bank in Huaibei, in eastern China's Anhui province. (AFP/File)

The core message of the recent Morgan Stanley Blue Paper “Why We Are Bullish on China” is that Chinese equities can continue to outperform emerging-market equities in the future, as they have done for some time. Cumulative outperformance over the last 15 years for MSCI China versus MSCI EM has been 5,000 basis points, or around 3 percent per year. China has also outperformed emerging markets over both five and ten years, and not by small amounts. Total returns have averaged 5 percent per year in US dollar terms over those periods, and 13 percent per year over the last 15 years. For us, being overweight China equities in our recommended allocation to clients investing in the EM space is not unusual. Our structural bullishness in the 10 years I have covered China equities at Morgan Stanley is starkly different from that of the consensus amongst global investors and even E...