In today’s briefing:
- The Week That Was in ASEAN@Smartkarma – Adaro Beyond Coal, Indocement, and SingTel Back in Favour?
- Anwar’s Cabinet Deftly Balances Policy and Political Imperatives
- The Commodity Report #80
- The Mountains are high….
The Week That Was in ASEAN@Smartkarma – Adaro Beyond Coal, Indocement, and SingTel Back in Favour?
- The Week That Was in ASEAN@Smartkarma is filled with an eclectic mix of differentiated, substantive, and actionable insights, macro and equity bottom-up, from across South East Asia.
- The past week saw insights on Adaro Energy, Indocement, Saratoga Investama, Berli Jucker, Bumrungrad Hospital, Synnex Thailand, Singtel, and Chip Eng Seng Corp (CHIP SP).
- We also had stocks to own in ASEAN from Dr Andrew Stotz, and sector views on Banks, IT, property, and hotels in Thailand from Pi Securities.
Anwar’s Cabinet Deftly Balances Policy and Political Imperatives
- Anwar’s cabinet reflects the complex realities of governing via a coalition of unlikely bedfellows. Compromises had to be made.
- Assigning influential posts to UMNO’s pro-coalition faction helps ensure Barisan’s continued support for the coalition. GPS’ expanded cabinet presence should keep it satisfied.
- Appointments to key economics-related portfolios are a cause for cautious optimism that economic policymaking will be sound and rational.
The Commodity Report #80
- US manufacturing contracted in November for the first time since May 2020 as output weakened in the face of a third-straight month of shrinking orders.
- According to data released Thursday, the ISM’s gauge of factory activity slid to 49 from 50.2 in the prior month.
- The measure has fallen in five of the last six months and stands below 50, the threshold separating expansion and contraction, for the first time since the pandemic lockdowns.
The Mountains are high….
- There is a tendency in the west to see China as an authoritarian monolith – in contrast to the supposedly highly accountable democratic west, albeit only those with the shortest of memories can look at the current protests against Covid taking place in China and think them somehow unique*.
- The reality is, of course, different, for while over the course of his first two terms Xi has certainly moved to consolidate more power to the centre, the reality is still that, in the words of the old Chinese proverb, “The mountains are high and the Emperor is far away”, ie the relative autonomy of the regions remains strong and thus the Covid restrictions – and by extension the protests – reflect a tapestry of different regional interpretations of central government policies.
- Right now, it seems that the centre is asking the regions to ease back on Covid restrictions, which is why, despite the headlines, the markets believe this is more about opening up than closing down again.
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