Capital inflow into Chinese on-shore stock market would accelerate in 2019 thanks to global index supplier MSCI's decision to hike the inclusion factor of China's A-Shares from 5 percent to 20 percent in three steps within 2019, according to a research note by Swiss multinational investment bank UBS AG.
The weighting for Chinese A-shares in MSCI Emerging Market index would rise to 3.3 percent by November, up from around 0.7 percent at present, said MSCI.
"This latest MSCI weight increase should help trigger at least 60 billion U.S. dollars in inflows to A-shares in 2019, pushing cumulative foreign ownership above 160 billion U.S. dollars," said the research note issued on Friday.
Higher A-share allocation is a long-term structural trend for international investors, it added.
Incremental buying in the short term will probably remain biased toward select sectors and stocks currently prefered by overseas capital, such as white goods, insurance, healthcare and electronics, it said.
Meanwhile, the sharp run-up in onshore brokers, partially stoked by recent recovery in onshore stock markets, offers attractive levels to take profits in the sector, according to UBS.
MSCI's announcement of higher A-share inclusion factor will bring a new pool of international investors to the A-share market, which overtime will help raise transparency and improve governance to these listed companies, said Jorge Mariscal, chief investment officer on emerging markets with UBS Wealth Management.
The weight of China's A-shares in MSCI Emerging Market index could increase to 15 percent within the next 10 years and active emerging market investors would find it hard to brush aside exposure to Chinese onshore portfolios amid similar moves by other international index providers, according to UBS.
UBS said it remains tactically overweight on Chinese equities in its Asian portfolios and continues to prefer onshore to offshore Chinese stocks with the former set to benefit from capital inflow, more accommodative monetary policy and fiscal stimulus.
Widely-followed Shanghai Composite Index has entered territory of bull market thanks to solid growth so far this year and d just shy of 3000 points on March 1.
