Market Outlook - December 2024

Recently, China has expressed increasing urgency to stabilise its property market and domestic consumption, through stronger-than-usual language from the administration. Given that these were mostly high-level statements, we remain skeptical on the announcement given the Chinese government’s hesitance to implement substantial economic stimulus in recent years.

In the US, we also see that there has been growing interest in value stocks, as investors seek opportunities in undervalued companies amid concentrated gains in companies like the Magnificent Seven. At current valuations, Goldman Sachs has forecasted that the broader  S&P500 index will return a mere 3% annually over the next 10 years. We will however remain focused and selective on US opportunities - buying on dips, looking at undervalued stocks or even going into smaller capitalization companies if they have differentiated business models or products. We believe this approach is more sensible under the current conditions of uncertainty in both the global economy and geopolitics heading into 2025.