Daily Brief Macro: The Week That Was in ASEAN@Smartkarma - BCA's Connectivity and more

In today’s briefing:

The Week That Was in ASEAN@Smartkarma – BCA’s Connectivity, VinFast to IPO, and I-Tail Corp Listing
UK: Zombie Nation Rises in Recession
The Commodity Report #81

The Week That Was in ASEAN@Smartkarma – BCA’s Connectivity, VinFast to IPO, and I-Tail Corp Listing

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 Bank Central Asia, Aneka Gas, VinFast and plans to list in the US, I-Tail (ITC TB), and Jardine Cycle & Carriage
There were also macro insights on Malaysian politics and the risks with Vietnam’s economy plus an index rebalancing in the Philippines with DMCI Holdings to potentially benefit.

The UK re-opened from another bank holiday and recovered a tenth more ground than expected by growing 0.5% m-o-m. It matched our view of the 3m-o-3m pace at -0.3%.
Upside news was in construction, where builders are racing against a policy deadline, and health services, where the ONS is poor adjusting for seasonal vaccinations.
Underlying trends remain on track for a recession, not helped by strikers ignoring this direction — nonetheless, we half the Q4 decline in our forecast to -0.2% q-o-q.

The Federal Reserve has done a spectacular job of keeping inflation expectations “anchored” in this market, despite multi-decade high levels of inflation.
From the perspective of the Federal Reserve, it’s important to have well-anchored inflation expectations because this can help to keep actual inflation close to the central bank’s target rate.
When inflation expectations are well-anchored, households and businesses are more likely to base their decisions on the assumption that inflation will remain stable and close to the target rate.

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