China fund sees bonds beating stocks

Bloomberg

Du Zhenye outperformed his peers in China last year by selling nearly all his stock holdings and piling into bonds. He’s predicting 2019 will be similar for the market.
“Bonds will be a sure bet,” said Du, who plans to buy short-dated debt issued by local government financing vehicles, as well as long-dated government and policy bank notes.
Falling US Treasury yields and monetary easing by Beijing will boost Chinese bonds, while high financing costs will hurt company profits and affect their share prices, the fund manager said.
Changan Xinyi Enhanced Mixed Fund has returned 15 percent since Du took the helm in April.
The fund was in the top 1 percent among competitors over the past year as bonds and shares headed in opposite directions. Chinese sovereign notes emerged among the world’s best performers in 2018, while equities plunged into a bear market — the Shanghai Composite Index fell more than any other major stock gauge.
The central bank has cut the reserve-requirement ratio for lenders five times since early last year to loosen liquidity and boost economic growth. That’s yet to spur demand, with data from exports to retail sales trailing analysts’ forecasts. The yield on US government bonds has meanwhile fallen from a seven-year high in October amid growing expectations the Federal Reserve may halt interest rate hikes.
China’s economy will face “huge pressure” under tight monetary policy, so authorities are likely to loosen conditions by cutting the benchmark interest-rate for the first time since 2015, Du said. Companies’ high leverage combined with weak demand will worsen profits, he added.
The People’s Bank of China injected a net $83 billion into the financial system through open-market operations.