Where now for the renminbi?

Asia ex Japan index underperforms for three years

Nicholas Beecroft,portfolio specialist at T. Rowe Price, takes a closer look at prospects for investors in Asia.

After returning -8.9% in 2015 in dollar terms, the MSCI AC Asia ex Japan index has now underperformed the MSCI AC World index for three consecutive years. We see this as evidence the rotation in favour of developed markets at the expense of Asia is well advanced. With Asia trading at under 1.29x forward price to book value at the end of January 2016 - compared to 1.25x at the bottom of the global financial crisis - and with many Asian markets at huge discounts to long term average price to book multiples, we believe the region offers very good value to investors with a longer term time h...