The financials market got off to a great start in 2013 as expected. Please refer the articles i have written in the past 3 months calling for this
Risk Asset Cooled ahead of Hurricane Sandy? Opportunity to buy for 2013!
China PMI rose above 50 – signs of sustained recovery to come?
Divergence In China Related Equities Recently – How To Read Into It?
The financial markets are likely to see a very strong year as equity risk premium for major economies such as EU, Japan, China, Hong Kong, South Korea are all over 10%. The fall in risk free rate plus the major compression of credit spread in 2012 has made equity markets one of the cheapest asset class out there. The other 2 asset class which could also perform well would be convertible bonds and high yield bonds as global default rate continue to fall on the back of quantitative easing.
Furthermore, in 2013 we are likely to see a repeat of 2003 and 1993 of which in 2003 the money that came out of the Nasdaq bubble fueled global risk assets including US subprime and asset backed markets which burst in 2007 . In 1993, the money that came out of post Japan bubble also fueled the markets in Asia ex Japan which resulted in the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis later on. I believe we are seeing a repeat here as globally central banks has embarked on massive quantitative easing and this year onwards the money is going to flow out of government bonds and money market funds to fueled risk assets especially those markets trading above historical risk premiums.
Stay tune for Part 3 of this article – as I analyze sectoral performance globally.
