Equity markets around the world continued to record gains over the week as the MSCI AC World index increased by 0.60 per cent.
Developed markets, which have seen strong run-ups this year, underperformed the Asia ex Japan regional benchmark last week, with the
performance of US (an increase of 0.33 per cent), European (an increase of 1.37 per cent) and Japanese (an increase of 0.95 per cent) equities unable to beat the MSCI Asia ex Japan’s return of 1.85 per cent for the week.
Additionally, emerging markets as a whole, as represented by the MSCI Emerging Markets index, also made gains of 1.18 per cent.
North Asian markets led the way in performance, as Chinese, Korean and Taiwanese equity markets outperformed their regional counterparts.
The Taiwanese equity market rebounded from the previous week, rallying by 3.91 per cent and establishing itself as the top performer over the week.
Korean equities (as represented by the KOSPI index) followed suit, recording a gain of 2.55 per cent over the week, while Chinese equity indexes like the CSI 300 index and the HSML 100 index rallied by two and 1.5 per cent respectively.
Indian equities (as represented by the SENSEX index) also recorded gains over the week, increasing by 3.64 per cent and outperforming all the Southeast Asian markets under our coverage.
Russian and Indonesian equities were the bottom performers over the week, with Russia recording losses of 2.64 per cent and Indonesia recording losses of 3.55 per cent in ringgit terms but a decrease of 1.42 per cent in local currency terms.
SEA: Singapore’s Nodx Spike, Thai GDP decelerates
In Southeast Asia, the release of Thailand’s third quarter of 2013 (3Q13) gross domestic product (GDP) figures pointing to continued decelerating economic growth, with 3Q13 GDP growing by 2.7 per cent year-on-year (y-o-y), falling short of consensus estimates of a 2.9 per cent increase and down from an upward-revised 2.9 per cent y-o-y growth in the second quarter.
Private consumption weakened, declining by 1.2 per cent y-o-y after a 2.5 per cent increase in the previous quarter. Investment also slumped in 3Q, declining by 6.5 per cent y-o-y from a prior increase of 4.7 per cent in 2Q13.
With economic growth decelerating over the past few quarters this year, the government’s fiscal stimulus plans of infrastructure projects and a rebound in exports due to a pickup in the global economy would be vital for the country’s economic growth moving forward.
South of Thailand, Singapore’s non-oil domestic exports posted a 2.8 per cent y-o-y gain in October, outperforming consensus expectations of a 1.1 per cent decline, and marked an improvement from September’s 1.2 per cent contraction.
As has been for much of the year, electronic exports remained a weak spot as the measure contracted 1.4 per cent y-o-y in the month; although this was still better than the 5.4 per cent contraction forecasted by the consensus.
Despite the latest positive data point, IE Singapore’s zero to one per cent full-year forecast for non-oil domestic exports in 2013 is unlikely to be met, as it would require an unrealistic gain in the measure for November and December.
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