Over the month the fund gained 1.4% in GBP, the best country performance came from China and Hong Kong, the weakest was South Korea. Consumer Discretionary was the strongest performing sector and Industrials the weakest.
Whilst the South Korean ‘Value-up’ agenda has been a huge success over the past few years, the approval of levered EFTs on the memory stocks was a clear mistake. Fanning the speculative flames amongst domestic retail investors helped cause volatility not seen since the GFC, and having more than doubled in the first half the index fell 44% from the June peak and 22% in July alone.
According to Citibank estimates this crystallised around $38bil of wealth destruction amongst retail investors, with more than 1.2 million accounts receiving margin calls in the first two weeks and c350,000 forcibly liquidated. Inevitably there will be political ramifications given the close association President Lee has fostered with the performance of the stock market, and it will be interesting to see if it helps or hinders the case for longer-term investment rather than speculation or real-estate.
The trigger for the correction came from credit market concerns, which we have previously mentioned. The sustainability of AI capex has increasingly come under scrutiny given the lightning speed the competitive landscape is evolving, and the now well understood funding gap for capex that is no longer supported by operating cash flows, a gap that is expected to widen further. The sensitivity centers on the likely return on investment given that these companies have little choice but to keep spending, as at this stage of the super-cycle capex is directly correlated to revenue. The clear beneficiaries of this transfer of free cashflow continue to be the chip and memory makers.
Following record second quarter earnings, the focus is increasingly on capital return policies given announcements from Micron (100% of FCF) and Kioxia (50% of FCF plus buyback). Market expectations for the Korean companies have risen given the visibility and scale of their cash generation. UBS is estimating that next year Samsung and Hynix together will account for as much as 9% of global corporate free cash flow. Given the increasing visibility of demand from the introduction of long-term contracts, the internal debate will be on whether this cash is better directed to capacity expansions rather than dividends. Further to this there is now the debate on how investors will value companies that are evolving from growth into yield plays as the price of memory begins to plateau, which it inevitably will do.
On this theme of valuation, the broader issue overarching all markets continues to be the rising cost of capital coming from increasingly congested credit markets. Government bond yields have continued to rise across nearly every major market with the US now paying the highest yields on long term debt in a quarter of a century.
This is partly attributable to the fiscal deterioration, with net interest and entitlements accounting for 98.4% of government receipts, as is the fact that nominal GDP growth has been at a trend rate of 5.9% YoY, well above the level of the 10-year Treasury yield and a sure signal that yields should move higher.
Compounded by the afore mentioned rapacious demand from the AI corporate sector indicates a classic supply and demand imbalance leading to higher prices. As our process starts with looking at long-term rates to assess the attractiveness of risk adjusted returns from our equities, we are closely monitoring how this is translating into our core markets through local rates and of course the US dollar. As has been clearly illustrated this last month, given the significant correction in Korea and technology, it is important to take a consistently diversified approach to the EM asset class and not put all your eggs in one AI basket