Overseas investors turn net sellers of Asian equities in November

By Gaurav Dogra and Patturaja Murugaboopathy
Dec 10 (Reuters) - Foreigners turned net sellers of Asian
equities in November amid mixed signals on whether the United
States and China were getting closer to reaching a preliminary
trade deal.
Overseas investors sold $4.3 billion worth of regional
equities in the last month, after two successive months of
buying, data from stock exchanges in South Korea, Taiwan,
Thailand, Philippines, Indonesia and Vietnam showed.
"I see it as a mixture of profit booking and also
cautiousness in November given the event risks into the end of
the year," said Jingyi Pan, a Singapore-based market strategist
with financial services firm IG.
Washington's next round of tariffs against $156 billion
worth of Chinese goods are scheduled to take effect on Dec. 15.
South Korea led the regional outflows with foreign sales of
about $3 billion in November, the biggest in 13 months, mostly
driven by its weak exports. The fourth-largest Asian economy
faced 12th straight month of contraction in exports, November
month's preliminary exports data showed. Indonesian equities saw about $500 million worth of foreign
outflows, while Taiwan witnessed overseas sales of $318 million
last month.
However, Indian equities received foreign money of $3.54
billion in November, helped by the central bank's monetary
stimulus measures and the corporate tax cut announced in
September.
Refinitiv data showed Indian firms are expected to lead Asia
with earnings growth of 36% in 2020, followed by South Korea and
Vietnam.
Going forward, market participants are wary that Sino-U.S.
trade tension could escalate further, if Trump goes ahead with
the planned tariffs this weekend.
"We have seen Asia equities picking up at the start of the
month (December) on trade hopes, but a lot hinges on whether we
will see an interim trade deal ahead of the Sunday deadline for
this optimism to carry on," IG's Pan said.

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