This weekly newsletter pulls together summaries of the top ten most-read Insights across Macro and Cross Asset Strategy on Smartkarma.
Receive this weekly newsletter keeping 45k+ investors in the loop
1. The 10 Most Interesting Things We Learned on Odd Lots in 2024
- Private credit is transforming the world of debt, creating concerns for investors and the broader economy
- Chicken wing prices are volatile due to the poultry industry focusing on breast meat demand, making wings a fall-off product
- Companies like Elf Bar evade FDA regulation by flooding the market with products and rebranding under different names
This content is sourced through publicly available sources and has been machine generated. Information displayed is for general informational purposes only.
2. HONG KONG ALPHA PORTFOLIO (December 2024)
- Hong Kong Alpha Portfolio returned 5.23% in December and outperformed the benchmark by 5.92%. The portfolio has outperformed Hong Kong indexes by 10.36% to 14.38% since its inception on 10/01/24.
- About 80% of the portfolio’s excess returns have been from alpha generation. The portfolio has no exposure to Real Estate, Healthcare, Materials, or Energy at this time.
- At month end, we sold ZhongAn Online P&C Insurance C (6060 HK) , China Longyuan Power (916 HK) , CRRC Corp Ltd H (1766 HK), and Weibo (9898 HK) .
3. 2025 Regime Update: How Does the Opening Scene of 2025 Look?
- Hello everyone—we hope you enjoyed the holiday season and had a wonderful Christmas.
- The festive season has been relatively quiet macro-wise, with only a few comments from the PBoC and BoJ.
- However, markets seem unwilling to move until there is news on the USD front, which has been driving almost all assets since December.
4. Steno Signals #178 – Brace yourselves, liquidity is coming!
- Happy New Year, friends, and welcome back to the Steno Signals editorials! My apologies for the silence over the past few days—I celebrated New Year’s Eve (and my 35th birthday) battling a nasty pneumonia, which has taken some time to recover from.
- Thankfully, I am finally better and wanted to share my 2025 thoughts on liquidity with you, as I find myself disagreeing quite a bit with the current semi-bearish consensus.
- We experienced an almost equally “tight” year-end as the tight quarter-end back in September.
5. Surging Share Buybacks in Korea in 2024
- Capitalizing on the lower share prices combined with the government’s pressure for Corporate Value up improvements, the share buybacks surged in Korea in 2024.
- As of 27 December 2024, the total treasury shares planned acquisition amount by Korean companies increased by 215% YoY to 11.83 trillion won in 2024.
- There have been some mixed share price performances among the companies announcing meaningful share buyback/cancellation announcements this year.
6. Contrarian Bargains Among Santa’s Discards
- The stock market is likely to advance during the Santa Claus rally window, which began on December 24 and ends January 3.
- But the rally is attributed to an oversold bounce and marked by narrow leadership. Either the rebound fizzles in January or broadens into lagging issues.
- We identified selected contrarian value opportunities for bulls among Santa’s discards for potential outperformance into January and beyond.
7. Asia Ex-Japan Funds: Stock Positioning Update
- Top holdings remain unchanged: TSMC, Samsung Electronics, and Tencent are almost universally owned. TSMC hits record weights but active funds sell into strength as benchmark weights surpass 10%
- Hon Hai, Hyundai Motor, and Singtel lead recoveries from prolonged declines. Baidu Inc. and Kweichow Moutai see sharp ownership drops.
- Momentum leaders include Accton Technology, CATL, and KE Holdings. By contrast, Axis Bank, PDD, and Reliance face stalling ownership.
8. Estimating Downside Risk
- The U.S. equity is highly vulnerable because of overvaluation and excessive growth expectations, but valuation is not very predictive of returns over a one-year time horizon.
- We estimate downside risk on the S&P 500 in the 20–30% range in the event of a major bear market.
- Despite our concerns, we see no immediate bearish triggers for investors to adopt defensive positioning in their portfolios.
9. Asia Ex-Japan Funds: Country Positioning Update
- China dominates allocations, India and Taiwan are equal 2nd, while South Korea lags a further 7% behind after seeing a big drop in exposure.
- Indonesia leads the ASEAN region, emerging as the top overweight country as a record 79.8% of funds are ahead of the benchmark.
- India sees 62% underweight the benchmark. Vietnam hits new highs in average fund weight (0.97%) and fund participation (34%).
10. End of Mandatory Lock-Up Periods for 57 Companies in Korea in January 2025
- We discuss the end of the mandatory lock-up periods for 57 stocks in Korea in January 2025, among which four are in KOSPI and 53 are in KOSDAQ.
- The ban on short selling of Korean stocks which is still in place is likely to be lifted on 31 March 2025.
- Some of the companies mentioned in this insight which highlights the end of the major lockup periods could help to narrow down the list of candidates for potential shorting.
