■ Net foreign buying accelerates post FOMC. Figure 1 highlights that net foreign buying in Emerging Asia ex-China ex-Malaysia accelerated post last week’s FOMC to US$1.02 bn on 16 March and US$1.14 bn on 17 March. Over just the past six days, net foreign buying is US$4.4 bn with the bulk of the buying concentrated in Taiwan (US$1.46 bn), India (US$1.38 bn) and Korea (US$1.26 bn). While Indonesia has seen net foreign buying of US$0.47 bn over this period, the other two TIPs—namely, Thailand and the Philippines—are associated with net foreign selling.
■ Have we now become crowded? With net foreign buying in Emerging Asia ex-China ex-Malaysia rising to US$7.1 bn so far in March, a key investor concern is whether markets have become crowded. We define crowded as net foreign buying on a rolling 12-month basis rising to 1% of market cap or higher. As we are dropping out last March which was associated with an even bigger US$14 bn of net foreign buying, net foreign buying has dropped from 0.7% to 0.6% in March on a rolling 12-month basis.
■ We have reached our YE MXASJ target of 580. We are currently reviewing our YE MSCI Asia ex-Japan target of 580 which has just been breached. We continue to suggest buying on dips as we are seeing the best ROE fundamentals in six years.