# Bank of America's Bernard Mensah on Business Plan, Asia Stocks Higher

An episode of [Bloomberg Daybreak: Asia Edition](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1663863437), 28 Apr 2026, 20 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/58e85be7-dbb5-4043-afed-af80014dc0b3/a106a6e2-a189-4e03-96ad-b43a00267766/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=27143354-63aa-4ac5-965d-af80014dc0d3

In Singapore, business leaders are gathering in Singapore today for a Bank of America conference focused on technology. Front and center are the fallout from the Iran war and where AI investments are headed. Bernard Mensah, President of International for Bank of America spoke to Bloomberg's Haslinda Amin at the event. And - Asian stocks held near their highest level since late February as traders awaited the next catalyst in the Middle East and central bank decisions. Meantime, CLSA has released a new portfolio about China's supply chain resilience amid the ongoing geopolitical tensions. Shihao Li is CITIC CLSA A-Share Strategist and he spoke to Bloomberg's David Ingles and Avril Hong See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:02] Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio News.
[0:12] Speaker 2: Welcome to the Daybreak Asia podcast. I'm Dan Schwartzman. Doug
[0:15] Speaker 2: Krisner has a week off. We begin in Singapore, where
[0:18] Speaker 2: business leaders are gathering today for a Bank of America
[0:20] Speaker 2: conference focused on technology front and center of the fallout
[0:24] Speaker 2: from the Iran War and where AI investments are headed.
[0:27] Speaker 2: And we had the chance to catch up with Bernard Mensa.
[0:30] Speaker 2: Bernard is a president of International for Bank of America,
[0:33] Speaker 2: and he spoke to Bloomberg's host Linda Ahmen.
[0:35] Speaker 3: Start with technology.
[0:37] Speaker 4: Since this is a gathering of innovators and entrepreneurs, how
[0:40] Speaker 4: is Bank of America capitalizing on EI and how will
[0:44] Speaker 4: that shape the bank five years from now?
[0:46] Speaker 1: Oh and thanks goods to kids to have me here.
[0:49] Speaker 1: And it's great to be here in Singapore. In many ways,
[0:52] Speaker 1: we've been at this for many, many years, and with
[0:55] Speaker 1: the latest technology, we're really leaning in and figuring out
[0:58] Speaker 1: across so men different vectors because we're so big ways
[1:01] Speaker 1: that we can really use it's to drive change.
[1:03] Speaker 5: So we're excited about that.
[1:05] Speaker 4: Let some say that EI will allow you to be
[1:07] Speaker 4: more productive with fewer workers.
[1:09] Speaker 3: Do you see that happening? Few are but more productive.
[1:12] Speaker 1: Not necessarily, I think maybe in different ways. So you know,
[1:14] Speaker 1: things like how we operate, how we look at fraud,
[1:17] Speaker 1: how we look at onboarding customers, how we get our
[1:21] Speaker 1: global markets activities out there, how we deal with consumers.
[1:24] Speaker 1: All of the things are terrific, but there's many ways
[1:26] Speaker 1: in which we could add.
[1:29] Speaker 5: Other value to our customers.
[1:30] Speaker 1: So when I think back over fifteen twenty years ago
[1:33] Speaker 1: in other areas, I grew up in the trading business.
[1:36] Speaker 1: Technology came in and made a lot of trading systems automated,
[1:39] Speaker 1: but a number of people stayed the same. They start
[1:41] Speaker 1: to provide more structured solutions to clients. You can get
[1:44] Speaker 1: more foreign solutions if you go on holiday, choose which
[1:47] Speaker 1: currency to pay, and etc. So I think there'll be
[1:49] Speaker 1: other ways in which people will.
[1:50] Speaker 4: Be So when you take a look at your international business,
[1:53] Speaker 4: hiring is going to be accelerated on the back of that.
[1:58] Speaker 3: Growth.
[1:59] Speaker 1: I think that we're I need to try and keep
[2:00] Speaker 1: our headcounts around about flat, and what we're doing is
[2:04] Speaker 1: in so far as we're having turnover, we're leaning into that.
[2:07] Speaker 1: So a high percentage of our head counts is actually
[2:10] Speaker 1: failed internally. So every time an opportunity comes up, we
[2:13] Speaker 1: look around internal and see if somebody wants to do that. Internationally,
[2:16] Speaker 1: we have been growing. Our headcount has gone outside the
[2:18] Speaker 1: years from about fifteen sixteen to about eighteen thousand. It
[2:21] Speaker 1: has been an area of real growth for US, which
[2:23] Speaker 1: is great. We have another group of about thirty thousand
[2:25] Speaker 1: colleagues in India, and I think we'll be looking to
[2:28] Speaker 1: add to that, depending on which countries show where the
[2:30] Speaker 1: opportunities are.
[2:32] Speaker 4: The Yran War is the other preoccupation for investors. How
[2:35] Speaker 4: are your clients looking at it? Are they looking past
[2:38] Speaker 4: the Iran War already? Because when you take a look
[2:40] Speaker 4: at the market, that cuddenly.
[2:41] Speaker 3: Is the case.
[2:42] Speaker 1: Yeah, everybody is looking had to figuring out what it means,
[2:46] Speaker 1: what might it mean. Our research has revised down our
[2:48] Speaker 1: growth estimates in the US and around the world slightly
[2:51] Speaker 1: and maybe slightly less in China. And we've revised up
[2:54] Speaker 1: inflation more than one hundred and forty basis points in
[2:56] Speaker 1: Europe for example, So we really see an inflation shock
[2:59] Speaker 1: coming through to some extent, and we see growth mitigator.
[3:02] Speaker 1: We think maybe in twenty seven with lower oil that
[3:05] Speaker 1: might be slightly high grid. So we've revised up some
[3:07] Speaker 1: of the back end growth there, So we're all trying
[3:09] Speaker 1: to figure that out. I think companies are going through
[3:11] Speaker 1: to figure out what does that mean for their supply
[3:13] Speaker 1: chains where their input costs are.
[3:15] Speaker 5: So a lot of we're going on the corporate sector around.
[3:17] Speaker 4: Too much stimism is think I mean all in access
[3:19] Speaker 4: one hundred bucks a barrel at some point that would
[3:21] Speaker 4: have an impact on the innings outlook for companies, and
[3:24] Speaker 4: we're not even seeing revision downwards for ownings of companies.
[3:28] Speaker 1: Yeah, everybody's wondering that and wondering why the markets are
[3:32] Speaker 1: not way they are.
[3:32] Speaker 5: I think that.
[3:35] Speaker 1: You could take the view to sort of say, well,
[3:37] Speaker 1: I can't pricing really at the back end what's happening
[3:39] Speaker 1: and pricing from the short in over two to three months,
[3:42] Speaker 1: I can see a scenario where there are supply constraints
[3:45] Speaker 1: and they are price constraints.
[3:46] Speaker 5: But if I can work through.
[3:47] Speaker 1: That, you know, perhaps you know the rest of the
[3:50] Speaker 1: it might look like ABOc. So there's a sense in
[3:54] Speaker 1: which you can make an argument that on the current
[3:57] Speaker 1: trajectory and imply what you think the duration of this
[4:01] Speaker 1: conflict might be. And some people might say that, well,
[4:03] Speaker 1: it's assuming a sort of July, you know, June, July,
[4:08] Speaker 1: August sort of settlement for molecules and for energy to
[4:12] Speaker 1: start flowing back through. Whether that turns out to be
[4:14] Speaker 1: the case, we'll see.
[4:15] Speaker 3: And in terms of capital flows, what are you seeing.
[4:17] Speaker 4: People talk about how that flow may be coming to
[4:20] Speaker 4: Asia because of growth, but yet Asia is stuck at
[4:23] Speaker 4: the center of this Iran war because of its dependence
[4:27] Speaker 4: on oil from the Middle East.
[4:29] Speaker 1: Yeah, I was checking some numbers. I don't know if
[4:33] Speaker 1: this aps the accurate, but the energy has and input
[4:36] Speaker 1: courses about nine percent of GDP in the seventies when
[4:39] Speaker 1: we have the last oil shocks, about four or five
[4:42] Speaker 1: percent now, so it's slightly less. So if you look
[4:44] Speaker 1: across Asia, absolutely that energy shock is coming through, and
[4:47] Speaker 1: it's just quite energy dependent and it's relatively short of energy.
[4:51] Speaker 1: But all of the other growth opportunities around Asia, the
[4:54] Speaker 1: taln and the growth of infrastructure and the emergence of
[4:57] Speaker 1: new companies is all you know that that will remain
[5:01] Speaker 1: and I think Asia is well placed so just for
[5:04] Speaker 1: different energy sources, different energy mixes, so I remain really
[5:08] Speaker 1: polished on Asia.
[5:09] Speaker 4: Are you seeing capital flows coming to Asia on the
[5:11] Speaker 4: back of what do you have just mentioned.
[5:13] Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I think that there's a lot of interest
[5:15] Speaker 1: in what you know, how Asia is evolving now. Asia
[5:17] Speaker 1: historically has been an export of capital because Asias has
[5:20] Speaker 1: such a high saving strate, typically taking that capital invested
[5:23] Speaker 1: in the global capital markets where there's liquidity. But underlying
[5:27] Speaker 1: that in terms of new corporate, new ways of catering
[5:31] Speaker 1: to the Asian consumer and the growth in Asian.
[5:33] Speaker 5: Capital markets itself.
[5:35] Speaker 1: If you say Hong Kong, China, austral to Japan, it's
[5:37] Speaker 1: it's really terrific opportunities.
[5:39] Speaker 4: Bready, I want to talk about private credit. I was
[5:41] Speaker 4: curious to hear that you're pretty comfortable with what's happening
[5:45] Speaker 4: right now, because you see it is a healthy cleanup
[5:47] Speaker 4: and the Bank of America is coming in twenty five
[5:49] Speaker 4: billion dollars in the private credit space, Where exactly and
[5:53] Speaker 4: why exactly?
[5:54] Speaker 1: Well, look, and naturally we'll probably start in the US,
[5:57] Speaker 1: that's where we you know, we have our great customer base,
[6:00] Speaker 1: we have all of our clients and on the lot
[6:03] Speaker 1: of the corporate side, but we have an incredible corporate
[6:05] Speaker 1: and commercial base outside the US as well, so we'll
[6:08] Speaker 1: naturally start there. But we're looking globally at the opportunity.
[6:11] Speaker 1: I think the point with private credit, there's been a
[6:14] Speaker 1: lot of discussion and speculation around it. I think that
[6:16] Speaker 1: the means that people be thinking through where things price,
[6:19] Speaker 1: what's the liquidity, and as long as there's time for
[6:21] Speaker 1: that to work out and it isn't a shock, That's
[6:23] Speaker 1: what I meant by the fact that then things will settle.
[6:25] Speaker 1: So we're not complacent about it per se. We're just
[6:28] Speaker 1: saying that that breadth of fresh are but that sort
[6:32] Speaker 1: of perspective allows us to really make sure the portfolio
[6:35] Speaker 1: are in good shape. So for us, we weren't rushing
[6:38] Speaker 1: into it. We're very much not taking the view that
[6:41] Speaker 1: because we have a private verity pool, we should deploy it.
[6:43] Speaker 1: We're saying, what do our clients want and need. What
[6:45] Speaker 1: are those structures bring into the marketplace that are traditional
[6:49] Speaker 1: syndicated loan or couple of market solution doesn't provide, And
[6:51] Speaker 1: we're saying we're there with the balance sheet if that's needed.
[6:54] Speaker 4: People say though, that when you take a look at
[6:56] Speaker 4: private credit, age is a place to be right now.
[6:58] Speaker 4: It is seen as a safe haven and it is
[7:01] Speaker 4: a growing you know, acid in this part of the
[7:04] Speaker 4: world because of the low base. What are your thoughts
[7:06] Speaker 4: on private credit in Asia? Where are the opportunities? Might
[7:09] Speaker 4: Japan be the place to be as well?
[7:12] Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's I agree that this option is
[7:14] Speaker 1: actually as you were talking us thinking twenty five years ago,
[7:17] Speaker 1: I lived in Asia and actually there was a there
[7:19] Speaker 1: was a sort of private credit market. Then there was
[7:22] Speaker 1: a convertible bond market and other market. So as they're
[7:25] Speaker 1: fast growing companies, I think those needs will arise. I'm
[7:27] Speaker 1: particularly actually excited about Southeast Asia. I think that whole
[7:30] Speaker 1: area is doing really well and growing very well. Japan
[7:33] Speaker 1: has a terrific banking sector that had for a long time,
[7:36] Speaker 1: because of relative low growth growth, had been had seen
[7:41] Speaker 1: loan rates, utilization rates pretty low. So it seems to me,
[7:45] Speaker 1: and I may be wrong Bay since me that the
[7:47] Speaker 1: initial phase of regrowth in Japan, which is happening now
[7:50] Speaker 1: before we come through the regular banking channels. But at
[7:53] Speaker 1: the margin, there'll always be in a visive capital solutions.
[7:56] Speaker 4: Are those sectors which are more attractive than the others.
[7:59] Speaker 1: Oh, go across Asia, there's so I mean, I think
[8:02] Speaker 1: coming back to technology, there's so many interesting technology areas
[8:06] Speaker 1: that are coming through in in Asia, in Japan. I
[8:09] Speaker 1: think in the you know, in the in the in
[8:12] Speaker 1: East Asia, in the robotics sector, in the in the
[8:15] Speaker 1: machine sector. I think there's a lot of interest there.
[8:17] Speaker 1: And then of course areas like biotech coming out of
[8:20] Speaker 1: you know, China, Hong Kong, Japan as well.
[8:22] Speaker 5: It's super interesting.
[8:23] Speaker 4: And AI is one space that is seeing a lot
[8:26] Speaker 4: of debate because of the MASSI kabegs. There's still a
[8:29] Speaker 4: debate whether or not, you know, we're going to see
[8:31] Speaker 4: a bubble in a bubble bursting.
[8:32] Speaker 3: Your thoughts on that and can that KPEX be sustained?
[8:36] Speaker 5: Well, it's interesting.
[8:37] Speaker 1: That's one of the reasons why where we're here today.
[8:38] Speaker 1: You know, we started this technology dialogue five years ago,
[8:41] Speaker 1: is because we thought the evolution is such a fast
[8:44] Speaker 1: paced it's impacting us. We need to figure out where
[8:47] Speaker 1: it's going, what direction will move in. And if you
[8:49] Speaker 1: think about it, the last three poeys, it has moved
[8:51] Speaker 1: in so many different directions. Now agentic we weren't talking
[8:54] Speaker 1: about two three years ago. People want physical AI or
[8:57] Speaker 1: all of those things. So there's a lot of investment
[8:59] Speaker 1: going and will it get the right return on investments
[9:02] Speaker 1: on the different bits of vestment for example in data centers,
[9:06] Speaker 1: We'll have to see. But as to whether their real
[9:09] Speaker 1: use cases, real benefits, absolutely. You know, we have sixty
[9:13] Speaker 1: seventy million consumer clients in the US. We don't do
[9:16] Speaker 1: consumer banking outside the US, and they're using our virtual assistance,
[9:21] Speaker 1: our AI general assistance more and more and more every year.
[9:25] Speaker 1: You know, tens of minutes, counts of minutes, billions of
[9:27] Speaker 1: transactions we're getting to a year in terms of their
[9:31] Speaker 1: banking needs, and I think that will proliferate around the world.
[9:33] Speaker 4: Pretty just one fun a question before we let you go.
[9:36] Speaker 4: I mean, what are you advising clients to do with
[9:38] Speaker 4: their money?
[9:39] Speaker 3: Where the biggest.
[9:40] Speaker 1: Opportunities You know, it depends where you are. I would
[9:46] Speaker 1: say that over the medium term, and particularly in Asia
[9:50] Speaker 1: where we are.
[9:51] Speaker 5: There's so many opportunities.
[9:52] Speaker 1: It's that the demographics are terrific and a lot of
[9:56] Speaker 1: smart young people as well coming through. I think that
[10:01] Speaker 1: that combination needs that this opportunity is now. What we
[10:03] Speaker 1: want is for those companies to be available for people
[10:07] Speaker 1: to invest in with US through the stock markets, with US,
[10:09] Speaker 1: through private credit, with US through the banking sector. So
[10:12] Speaker 1: I think the bit traffic opportunities in Asia.
[10:14] Speaker 2: That was Bernard Mensa, President of International for Bank of America,
[10:17] Speaker 2: speaking of Bloomberg's hustling to Amen from the sidelines of
[10:20] Speaker 2: the Bank of America's Breakthrough Technology Dialogue. Welcome back to
[10:32] Speaker 2: the Daybreak Asia podcast. I'm Dan Schwartzman. Doug Prisner has
[10:35] Speaker 2: a week off. We moved to the markets Asian stocks
[10:38] Speaker 2: held near their highest levels since late February as traders
[10:41] Speaker 2: awaited the next catalyst in the Middle East and Central
[10:44] Speaker 2: bank decisions. CLSA has released a new portfolio about China's
[10:48] Speaker 2: supply chain amid the ongoing geopolitical tensions. Lie she Howe
[10:53] Speaker 2: is Civic CLSA, a share strategist. He spoke to Bloomberg's
[10:56] Speaker 2: David Ingless and April Hank.
[10:58] Speaker 6: Talk to us about this portfolio and what the rationale
[11:03] Speaker 6: is behind this.
[11:04] Speaker 7: Okay, So basically we look at this from a more
[11:06] Speaker 7: macro perspective, because if you look at the first quarterer
[11:09] Speaker 7: chinnel GDB, it's five percent, which beat.
[11:11] Speaker 8: In the marketing consensus.
[11:12] Speaker 7: And also if you look into the industrial profits, actually
[11:17] Speaker 7: from January to March, the industrial profits grow at fifteen percent.
[11:22] Speaker 7: So basically you can see the Chinese kind of not
[11:25] Speaker 7: only just withstand this hit from the Iran crisis, but
[11:29] Speaker 7: also kind of take a profit from that. So that
[11:31] Speaker 7: is why we need to revalue the resilience of the
[11:34] Speaker 7: China supply chain.
[11:35] Speaker 8: Well when the other regions.
[11:36] Speaker 7: Their capacity may be destroyed by the world, but for
[11:38] Speaker 7: China they'll be able to withstand that. So I mean
[11:42] Speaker 7: for global investors, if you want to look for the
[11:45] Speaker 7: uniqueness in China market, okay, this is the resilience that
[11:48] Speaker 7: you might need to pay a premium. Yeah, So that's
[11:50] Speaker 7: why we gather this portfolio, okay.
[11:53] Speaker 6: And the three key themes in terms of energy, talk
[11:56] Speaker 6: to us.
[11:56] Speaker 8: About that too. Oh yeah, So we have three sub themes.
[11:59] Speaker 7: The first clean energy substitution because right now, as you
[12:02] Speaker 7: can see, China's kind of benefit from this new energy
[12:06] Speaker 7: transition in the past ten years, but for the other countries,
[12:09] Speaker 7: especially for the Japan and South Korea, they might still
[12:12] Speaker 7: be heavily reliant on the traditional energy right for the
[12:15] Speaker 7: production lines. So basically, I think all the other countries
[12:17] Speaker 7: might think about whether we should speed up our clean
[12:20] Speaker 7: energy transition or China happened to be the you know,
[12:23] Speaker 7: the clean energy power equipment largest provider in the world. Okay,
[12:27] Speaker 7: So Basically these will become a new growth for China
[12:30] Speaker 7: for these industrials in China. And the same one is
[12:33] Speaker 7: the global sharing alignment. These are for the traditional sectors,
[12:37] Speaker 7: for example, for the upstream chemicals I see, yeah, right,
[12:40] Speaker 7: So basically you can see those refineries will hit in
[12:44] Speaker 7: the in the golf regions, but for China, our capacity
[12:47] Speaker 7: is still safe. So relatively, I think China, for the refineries,
[12:51] Speaker 7: they will be able to sell the products to the
[12:53] Speaker 7: other markets in global as well. And the last one
[12:56] Speaker 7: is what we'll call strategic resources. Basically, you can see
[12:59] Speaker 7: during the trade war, China use the earth as one
[13:02] Speaker 7: of the bargainership to negotiate with US.
[13:04] Speaker 8: Right for these year there's because of this war, we see.
[13:08] Speaker 7: The more and more products were forbidden from export for
[13:13] Speaker 7: Russia for China also, so we include some of these
[13:15] Speaker 7: strategic metals and fertilizers that China has, how to say,
[13:20] Speaker 7: a certain globe share, then China may be able to
[13:23] Speaker 7: use this as another bargain ship.
[13:25] Speaker 9: Yeah, so how you highlighted earlier perhaps some of these
[13:31] Speaker 9: energy names, and it's interesting, it's more beneficial what we've
[13:36] Speaker 9: seen in the past month or so for upstream. But
[13:40] Speaker 9: what about downstream we just maybe finding it a bit
[13:42] Speaker 9: difficult to pass on higher costs as well.
[13:48] Speaker 8: Yeah, that's a very good question, to be honest.
[13:50] Speaker 7: So for the next two to three quarters, it is
[13:52] Speaker 7: very critical for us to look at the CPI, so
[13:55] Speaker 7: whether the PPI, the uprising PPI, is able to be
[13:57] Speaker 7: passed down to the downstream. We're also looking to this
[14:01] Speaker 7: earning season very closely. So far, we think for those
[14:04] Speaker 7: manufacturers with higher overse exposure, they will still be able
[14:08] Speaker 7: to pass down this kind of upstream cost to their
[14:11] Speaker 7: end customers. But for some downstream manufacturers, I think they
[14:16] Speaker 7: might suffer some marginal squeeze at this moment. So for
[14:19] Speaker 7: our semi annual portfolio, we still don't include any consumption
[14:23] Speaker 7: names here because we have this concern.
[14:25] Speaker 8: I mean this is also universal for the other markets.
[14:27] Speaker 7: If you look at US stock market, I think people
[14:30] Speaker 7: also have some concern about the continuity of the consumption, right,
[14:33] Speaker 7: So I mean this is so far we just pay
[14:37] Speaker 7: attention to the appstream where this seems to have very
[14:40] Speaker 7: rosy profits for this and next quarter.
[14:44] Speaker 9: Okay, you talked earlier about the need for sort of rerating.
[14:48] Speaker 9: What are you seeing in terms of what's most underrated
[14:51] Speaker 9: and how much of a premium do you think needs
[14:53] Speaker 9: to be built in going forward?
[14:57] Speaker 7: Well, I mean there's still huge if you look at
[15:01] Speaker 7: like the city or the h share price is clearly
[15:05] Speaker 7: enjoyed very high premium versus China issue. So basically, and
[15:09] Speaker 7: for many manufacturer names listed in China issue, we put
[15:13] Speaker 7: some of our stocks here in the list. As you
[15:16] Speaker 7: can see, I think their relatively you still have some
[15:18] Speaker 7: discount compared to the other global manufacturing leaders. Well, we
[15:24] Speaker 7: have to admit that China so far the one of
[15:26] Speaker 7: the biggest manufacturing powerhouse in the world. So why shouldn't
[15:30] Speaker 7: we give it a premium at this moment?
[15:32] Speaker 6: Right, Charlot, let me ask you then, I think the
[15:35] Speaker 6: underlying premise, it seems to me, is if you know,
[15:40] Speaker 6: we're thinking about or rethink in globalization, Yeah, a reversal
[15:44] Speaker 6: somewhat of some of those trends, that this is a
[15:46] Speaker 6: portfolio that might make sense. China is a big exporting
[15:50] Speaker 6: economy and these names need to go global in other words,
[15:54] Speaker 6: so those two things seem counterintuitive to me. How does
[15:57] Speaker 6: a portfolio hold up in a world where we are
[15:59] Speaker 6: reversing parts of globalization?
[16:01] Speaker 8: Yeah, this is a very good question.
[16:02] Speaker 7: So I mean in the past globalization trend, I mean,
[16:05] Speaker 7: starting from two thousand and three when China joined WTO,
[16:08] Speaker 7: China is gradually becoming the word factory at the cost
[16:12] Speaker 7: of cheap labor. Right So, but now I think what
[16:16] Speaker 7: China wants to be is make sure that we can
[16:17] Speaker 7: remain our manufacturing capability under this antigogalization trend. We are
[16:22] Speaker 7: talking about antegobalization. It's not that, okay, we stop trade
[16:25] Speaker 7: with each other. I think it's more like the trading
[16:29] Speaker 7: region become more fractured, like China would seek a very
[16:32] Speaker 7: closely trading relationship with US in countries. Right, so we
[16:35] Speaker 7: have seen more and more our exports are going to
[16:37] Speaker 7: US in rather than directly to the US oru. So
[16:40] Speaker 7: this kind of trade relation still will maintain, but in
[16:43] Speaker 7: a different way. Well, what China wants to make sure
[16:45] Speaker 7: is that, Okay, under this antigualization trend, we're still the
[16:48] Speaker 7: word factory, but we can produce products with good quality
[16:53] Speaker 7: at fear costs.
[16:56] Speaker 6: Can I ask, let's pivot the conversation to just strat
[17:00] Speaker 6: g in this market. The Asian market, as you point out,
[17:02] Speaker 6: has been relatively resilient.
[17:04] Speaker 8: A couple of things.
[17:05] Speaker 6: You guys hylight and you're the report right, hedge fund
[17:07] Speaker 6: filings for example, forty eight month high.
[17:10] Speaker 8: What are those things telling you?
[17:11] Speaker 6: Those ETF flows, what are they telling you about the
[17:14] Speaker 6: near turn direction of the of the index?
[17:17] Speaker 7: Well, maybe we can have a more broad picture. So
[17:21] Speaker 7: first you just mentioned had front balance which is forty eight.
[17:24] Speaker 8: Month high, forty eight matile.
[17:26] Speaker 5: Yes.
[17:26] Speaker 7: And also for the return investors in March the new
[17:29] Speaker 7: account openings discussed by the Shahaks change is the second
[17:32] Speaker 7: highest and passitoral months. Basically there is no shortage of
[17:35] Speaker 7: liquidity for especially for China Asia. So we're kind of
[17:39] Speaker 7: expecting more influence into the market, especially for the sectors
[17:42] Speaker 7: that we just mentioned, because they seem to be able
[17:45] Speaker 7: to deliver decent profits earnings for the next two to
[17:48] Speaker 7: three quarters. And after this revaluation, then we might to revaluate,
[17:55] Speaker 7: you know, to reassess our portfolios, but that will be
[17:58] Speaker 7: for the second half of this year.
[18:00] Speaker 6: See what is the best opportunity right now in the
[18:03] Speaker 6: Asia mark.
[18:03] Speaker 8: What's the best trade?
[18:05] Speaker 7: I think the best trade is the globe sorry, the
[18:07] Speaker 7: domestic semis because we just have dips before AI model
[18:14] Speaker 7: it seems from their official announcement is that they are
[18:17] Speaker 7: going to lower their token price once their models kind
[18:21] Speaker 7: of could be applied to the Jahweh chip THEESCENT. So basically,
[18:27] Speaker 7: I think the China's models now together with the China's
[18:31] Speaker 7: domestic computing center, there's a reinforcing process.
[18:35] Speaker 8: They have a very big successful business model in the.
[18:38] Speaker 7: Second half of this year, so we might see another
[18:40] Speaker 7: round of similar AI capacs that we see in the
[18:43] Speaker 7: US right now that could be the new economic.
[18:46] Speaker 8: Driver for China.
[18:47] Speaker 6: Okay, and these are hardware place right, These are for
[18:49] Speaker 6: the hardware fantastic.
[18:51] Speaker 8: Thank you for that.
[18:52] Speaker 6: Clarification and other things as well.
[18:53] Speaker 8: Create insights there.
[18:54] Speaker 2: That was Lee she How, Civic CLSA Asier strategist, speaking
[18:58] Speaker 2: of Bloomberg's David and Glens in April.
[19:00] Speaker 3: Honk, thanks for listening to today's episode of the Bloomberg
[19:07] Speaker 3: Daybreak Asia Edition podcast.
[19:09] Speaker 7: Each weekday we look at the story shaping markets, finance,
[19:13] Speaker 7: and geopolitics in the Asia Pacific.
[19:15] Speaker 8: You can find us on Apple, Spotify, the Bloomberg Podcast
[19:19] Speaker 8: YouTube channel, or anywhere else you listen.
[19:21] Speaker 3: Join us again tomorrow for insight on the market moves
[19:24] Speaker 3: from Hong Kong to Singapore and Australia. I'm Doug Prisner,
[19:29] Speaker 3: and this is Bloomberg

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