Hedge funds' bets on Asia hit five-year high, says Goldman
Funds were buying and short-selling, with bullish positions in Asia between June 6 and June 12 hitting their highest level since September 2024 - outpacing bearish bets, said the Goldman note, published on Friday and seen by Reuters on Tuesday.
Hedge funds bought equities in Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan and India last week, but were short selling onshore Chinese stocks, Goldman said.
Asian stocks extended their strong rally in June as high-level trade talks between U.S. and China in London raised hopes for a de-escalation of the trade war, while South Korea's election of a market-friendly new president boosted capital inflows.
Market participants pointed out the trend of de-dollarization as a hedge against further declines in the U.S. dollar also benefited broad Asian markets.
"If you are an international investor, you might start to rotate back to either your own markets or Asia that has been under appreciated," said Kier Boley, co-head and CIO of UBP Alternative Investment Solutions.
The MSCI Asia-Pacific Index has risen 2.5% this month ,led by gains in Korea and Taiwan stocks. The benchmark has surged 24% since April 7, driven by a 90-day pause on higher U.S. tariffs and signs of progress in trade negotiations.
The share of developed Asia markets in hedge funds' total exposure tracked by Goldman rose to 9%, ranking in the 94th percentile in the past five years, Goldman said.
(Reporting by Summer Zhen; Editing by Kim Coghill)
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


Zawya
3 hours ago
- Zawya
Record-high stocks tremble as big week for market risk looms
Investors cashed out of record-high global stocks on Friday and the dollar headed for its first weekly drop in four, as markets trembled ahead of next week's U.S. jobs data, Federal Reserve and Bank of Japan meetings and Donald Trump's tariff deadlines. MSCI's global equity index was 0.3% lower after hitting an all-time peak on Thursday, after Japan's Topix index ended the day 0.9% lower, having also hit a record high a day earlier. Futures trading signalled Wall Street's Nasdaq Composite would flatline later in the day, with sentiment still buoyed by Google parent Alphabet's robust earnings that propelled the tech-heavy index to its latest peak on Thursday. Investors said they did not expect the markets' glass-half-full approach to trade war risks to last if jobs growth and earnings slow but the U.S. Federal Reserve also douses expectations that it will rush to the rescue by easing monetary policy. With the Fed's next rate decision on July 29 as Chair Jerome Powell comes under pressure from Trump to quit, August 1 brings the latest batch of monthly U.S. jobs data and the deadline for U.S. trade deals with Europe and other countries. "We've come to this sort of real, sort of pinch point of high risk, of things going in either direction, and markets have just breezed through it so far," Premier Miton CIO Neil Birrell said. "I'm genuinely struggling to work out why the bond markets seem relatively complacent and why equity markets have kept going up," he said, especially with disruption caused by trade uncertainty now showing up in companies' earnings. TECH, CENTRAL BANKS The dollar index, was heading for a 0.6% weekly drop, in the latest sign that U.S. policy and debt risk meant it was no longer viewed by investors as a haven asset when stock markets turn lower. "We know that the dollar tends to depreciate when there is a proper risk-on wave,' Amundi Investment Institute cross-asset strategist Federico Cesarini said. 'But the other side of the correlation, risk-off (and) dollar up, is not with us anymore.' Tech titans Amazon, Apple, Meta and Microsoft may all issue tariff-related updates with next week's earnings reports, just as parts of the tech sector have shown signs of revenues turning hard to forecast because of stockpiling and trade anxiety. Chipmaker Intel's shares dropped 5% in pre-market trade on Friday as it forecast steeper quarterly losses than expected and said it had halted or scrapped new factory projects in the U.S. and Europe. Money markets are only pricing about 42 basis points (bps) of Fed easing this year, setting next week's monthly non-farm payrolls report up as a major risk event if hiring has slowed and rate cut expectations have not risen. Trump has kept up pressure on Powell to cut rates after a rare presidential visit to the central bank on Thursday, although he said he did not intend to fire the head of the central bank, as he has frequently suggested he would. U.S. 10-year Treasury yields were steady at 4.41% while two-year yields, which track monetary policy bets, were also flat at 3.925%. The Bank of Japan has its own policy announcement on Thursday, and Prime Minister Ishiba's Liberal Democratic Party holds a meeting on the same day. That's after the European Central Bank held rates steady on Thursday and was viewed by traders as likely to pause further cuts until the end of the year. The euro was steady against the dollar on Friday at $1.178 , although German government debt sold off, with the yield on benchmark 10-year Bunds up 4 basis points (bps) at 2.726%. Elsewhere in markets, gold eased 0.8% to around $3,339 an ounce. Brent crude futures gained 0.4% to $69.65 a barrel. (Reporting by Kevin Buckland; Editing by Lincoln Feast, Sam Holmes and Saad Sayeed)


Zawya
4 hours ago
- Zawya
Shanghai Healthcare M&A Fund Takes Strategic Stake in MicroPort Scientific Corporation
HONG KONG SAR - Media OutReach Newswire - 25 July 2025 – MicroPort Scientific Corporation (Stock Code: "MicroPort") announced that Shanghai Healthcare M&A Fund ("SHMAF"), a fund managed by SIIC Capital, a subsidiary of SIIC Group, has entered into a share purchase agreement to acquire 135,335,204 shares in MicroPort held by Otsuka Medical Devices Co., Ltd. Through this transaction, SHMAF will become a strategic shareholder in MicroPort, underscoring its role as a state-backed, professionally operated platform that is creating value and empowering, stabilizing, developing, and reshaping leading biopharmaceutical companies in China. As a homegrown Chinese innovator that has grown into a global leader in high-end medical devices, MicroPort serves as an anchor company for the industry. Its stable development is critical to both China's and the global high-end medical device supply chain. This investment reflects SHMAF's capital-driven approach to providing crucial support to domestic anchor companies, ensuring their stability and support growth of their core assets. SHMAF will support MicroPort's growth momentum and high-quality sustainable development with its expansive resources. Introducing a strategic shareholder to drive growth momentum. The transaction brings in a significant strategic shareholder for MicroPort. Leveraging its state-backed resources and industrial expertise, SHMAF will support MicroPort's development needs, core business expansion, and potential strategic mergers and acquisitions to create synergies that bolster the company's ongoing innovation and scale-up its operations. Optimizing resource allocation to unlock synergistic value. MicroPort has successfully incubated and nurtured multiple listed companies and specialized, highly influential small companies, in the process establishing a unique MicroPort ecosystem. SHMAF will leverage its capital and operational integration expertise to support MicroPort in refining its development strategy, optimizing resource allocation, and unlocking synergistic value—while fully respecting market dynamics and corporate autonomy—to further strengthen its ecosystem and competitive advantages. Enhancing ecosystem to enhance anchor company value. MicroPort's product portfolio spans across ten major verticals, including cardiovascular intervention, rhythm management, orthopaedics, neurovascular intervention, and surgical robotics, making it a core player in the high-end medical device industrial chain. SHMAF's support will not only drive MicroPort's growth, it will also accelerate its consolidation of upstream and downstream companies in Shanghai, attract highly-skilled talent, and facilitate breakthroughs in critical technologies and core components—ultimately enhancing the global competitiveness of China's high-end medical device industry. This transaction marks another significant step in SHMAF's commitment to serving biopharmaceutical anchor companies. Upholding its value investment principles, SHMAF will collaborate with MicroPort's shareholders and management team to leverage the strategic support and industrial synergies its state-backed platform offers. Together, they will reinforce MicroPort's position as China's innovation engine in high-end medical devices and contribute to the advancement of the biopharmaceutical industry. Hashtag: #SIICCapital #MicroPort #SHMAF The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement. About MicroPort Scientific Corporation Founded in 1998 and headquartered in Shanghai's Zhangjiang, MicroPort Scientific Corporation is a leading domestic innovative high-end medical device group. It began by breaking the import monopoly in the cardiovascular stent field, and after 26 years of innovative development, its business has expanded to areas including rhythm management, orthopaedics, cardiovascular intervention, aortic and peripheral vascular intervention, neurovascular intervention, heart valves, surgical robots, and surgical medical devices. By the end of 2024, MicroPort operated in over 20,000 hospitals across 100 countries and regions worldwide, providing more than 600 solutions for patients covering over 200 diseases. MicroPort has incubated 6 A-share and Hong Kong-listed companies, owns 9 specialized and sophisticated SMEs, 4 technology giant enterprises, and 16 national high-tech enterprises, making it an outstanding representative of Shanghai's technological innovation and industrial transformation. About SIIC Capital As the active fund management platform under SIIC Group, since its establishment, SIIC Capital has been based in Shanghai, connected with Hong Kong, and oriented towards the world, actively exploring investment opportunities in strategic emerging industries such as biomedicine and green environmental protection. Through a multi-currency, full-stage fund matrix layout, it deeply serves national strategies and the construction of biomedicine highlands. SIIC Capital


Zawya
11 hours ago
- Zawya
Markets' trade deal euphoria ignores tariff reality: McGeever
(The opinions expressed here are those of the author, a columnist for Reuters.) ORLANDO, Florida - The optimism sweeping world stock markets following news of emerging and expected U.S. trade deals is undeniable and understandable. But it is also puzzling. The S&P 500, Britain's FTSE 100 and the MSCI All Country index have powered to new highs this week, and other global benchmarks are not far behind. Analysts at Goldman Sachs and other big banks have recently been raising their year-end S&P 500 forecasts by as much as 10%. The catalyst is clear: baseline tariffs on imported goods into the U.S. will be much lower than the duties President Donald Trump had threatened previously. It emerged this week that the levy on Japanese goods will be 15%, not 25%, and indications are that a deal with the European Union will land on 15% too. That's half the rate Trump had threatened to impose. Suddenly, the picture is nowhere near as bleak is it looked a few months ago. Economists reckon that the final aggregate U.S. tariff rate will settle around 15-20% once deals with Brussels and Beijing are reached, a level markets are betting won't tip the economy into recession. This suggests that Trump's seemingly chaotic strategy – threaten mutually assured economic destruction, extract concessions and then pull back to limit the market damage – is paying off. But will it? SOMEONE MUST PAY Despite the market euphoria, the fact remains that on December 31 last year, the average aggregate U.S. tariff on imported goods was around 2.5%. So even if that ends up in the anticipated 15-20% range, it will still be at least six times what it was only a few months ago, and comfortably the highest it has been since the 1930s. U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent estimates that tariff revenues this year could reach $300 billion, which is the equivalent to around 1% of GDP. Extrapolating last year's goods imports of $3.3 trillion to next year, a 15% levy could raise close to $500 billion, or just over 1.5% of GDP. So who will pick up that tab? Is it the U.S. consumer, importers or the overseas exporters? Or a mixture of all three? The likelihood is it will mostly be split between U.S. consumers and companies, squeezing household spending and corporate profits. Either way, it's hard to see how this would not be detrimental to growth. We may not know for some time, as it will take months for the affected goods to come onshore and get onto U.S. shelves and for the tariff revenues to be collected. "We've got a ways to go before we can really say the U.S. economy is feeling the full effect of the tariff policies being announced," Bob Elliott, a former Bridgewater executive and founder of Unlimited, told CNBC on Wednesday. But in the meantime, equity investors appear to be ignoring all of this. SIGNS OF FROTH The market's short-term momentum is clear. The S&P 500 has closed above its 200-day moving average for 62 days in a row, the longest streak since 1997, according to Carson Group's Ryan Detrick. And the 'meme stock' craze is back too, another sign that risk appetite may be decoupling from fundamentals. Indeed, markets are priced for something approaching perfection. The consensus S&P 500 earnings growth for next year is 14%, according to LSEG I/B/E/S, barely changed from 14.5% on April 1, just before Trump's "Liberation Day" tariff salvo. Even the 2025 consensus of around 9% isn't that much lower than 10.5% on April 1. A Reuters poll late last year showed a 2025 year-end consensus estimate for the S&P 500 of 6,500. The index is nearly there already, and is trading at roughly the same multiple as it was on December 31, a 12-month forward price-to-earnings ratio of 22. Can these lofty expectations be supported by an economy whose growth rate next year is expected to be 2% or less? Possibly. But it will be a challenge for most firms, with the exception of the 'Magnificent Seven' tech giants whose size might better shield them from tariffs or slowing growth. Ultimately, this is all a huge experiment pitting protectionist trade policy and Depression-era tariffs against the economic orthodoxy of the past 40 years. And it's yet another example of equity investors' ability to find the silver lining in almost anything. As Brian Jacobsen, chief economist at Annex Wealth Management, says: "'It could have been worse' is not a good foundation for a market rally". (The opinions expressed here are those of the author, a columnist for Reuters) (By Jamie McGeever. Editing by Mark Potter)