Morgan Stanley strategists raised their outlook for Chinese stocks for second time in a little more than a month, citing upside for valuations amid an improving outlook for earnings.
“MSCI China is finally on its way – looking set for the first earnings beat after 13 consecutive quarterly misses, while earnings estimate reductions are approaching inflection,” strategists including Laura Wang and Jonathan Garner wrote in a note dated Tuesday. “China deserves a valuation on par with MSCI EM, cutting its longstanding discount,” they added.
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. strategists expressed similar views. “China is back” on investors' radar with room for its rally to expand further, Kinger Lau and Timothy Moe wrote in a note dated Wednesday. They remained bullish on the market after meeting with investors in Asia, the US and Europe in the past month.
The MSCI China Index has risen 16% so far this year as a global share gauge has gained about 1%, showing the market may be emerging from its yearslong underperformance versus global peers. Tech has helped lead the way, thanks to the artificial-intelligence potential illustrated by DeepSeek, and by President Xi Jinping's warmer tone toward tech leaders.
Fourth-quarter earnings for the MSCI China Index are so far “showing a solid 8% net beat” on both number of companies and the weighted earnings for the first time in three and a half years, according to Morgan Stanley's analysis. That's the second-best result among major global equity markets, trailing only Japan, they added.
The strategists raised their year-end index targets for the Hang Seng Index, the Hang Seng China Enterprises Index, the MSCI China Index, and the CSI 300 Index to 25,800, 9,500, 83, and 4,220, respectively. That implies more than 8% upside for each of the gauges.
This comes nearly a month after they scrapped their bearish view on Chinese stocks, following Wall Street peers in predicting a more sustainable rally spurred by the country's AI advances.
Morgan Stanley recommends being overweight A shares in a Chinese portfolio, while for non-US investors the strategists suggest “buying on dips of high-quality stocks.”
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