In an informal survey of participants at the Fund Selector Asia Investment Forum in Bangkok on 21 March, 77% of respondents had a positive or very positive outlook on emerging market debt. A majority (67%) said they had a positive or very positive outlook on Asian government bonds.
On the other hand, 60% said they had a negative or very negative view on developed market government debt.
Upbeat on global economy
Broad optimism about the global economy was clear. Out of about 45 participants, 86% were bullish.
This optimism is shared by investors in other markets in the region. One month earlier, 82% of participants in the FSA Income Forum in Hong Kong and in Singapore combined expressed a positive outlook.
The Thai respondents were split when asked to predict the number of times the US Fed will raise interest rates in 2017. Half believed there would be two rate hikes and half said three, with a few outliers expecting four.
When asked about their perception of inflation, 70% said they saw it rising slowly and another 20% said it was benign. They were slightly more sanguine about it than respondents in Hong Kong and in Singapore, where a fifth of total participants saw it rising quickly.
In terms of client expectations on performance, 74% of respondents said their clients wanted 3%-5% yield from fixed income investments and an equal number said they expected more than a 6% return from equity investments.
A vast majority (82%) said they felt positive about Thailand economy in the next 12 months, but only 59% said the same about China.
The forum participants were mainly Thai fund selectors and their teams, but included some fund managers.
