You're listening to Asia Centric from Bloomberg Intelligence, the podcast that explores the big ideas and trends moving money across the region. I'm KATYDM Dreeva here in Hong Kong.
And I'm John Lee here in Sydney. Katia. The finance word loves buzzwords.
Yeah, they really do.
Hit me with a couple.
Well, the Magnificent Seven for a start, The Fed's pale talking about inflation being transitory.
Yeah, I do remember that era. You know something I've heard gaining traction as well, basically since the pandemic reopenings as American exceptionalism, this idea in markets and the economy that's somehow the US is just like.
Taflon and I've definitely heard a lot of strategists use US or American exceptionalism in their reports. And today we have the perfect guest to discuss this is Steve Bryce, Global Chief Investment Officer at Standard Charter Bank based in Singapore. Steve, welcome to the show.
Thank you so much, such a pleasure to be I wanted to get started by just asking very basic question, which is what is US exceptionalism to you? As an investor and someone who's been in a space for I guess three decades.
Now, yeah, I guess There's two elements to it, and they're obviously related. So the first piece is that this concept that the US economy is much more resilient to factors than other parts of the world, and there's different ways of looking at that. Obviously, you can look at nominal growth rates and say the US actually and the performing places like China, but it just seems to be a bit more in a sweet spot in terms of generating growth and innovation as well as a key piece.
And then the second piece of that then relates to asset markets. So obviously the depth of markets that innovation coming through in terms of very strong profitable opportunities for corporates leading to the outperformance of US assets, particularly obviously US equity market.
And we've seen that now for some time.
So if you go back to actually pretty much sinto the global financial crisis, maybe outside the first two or three years, we've seen in the US equity market generally outforming in a massive way. And so that's obviously leading to people to say, you know, can this continue forever? And is the US the only game in town? And that's sort of the epitome of the US exceptionalism and Mantra and.
Steve, I know you a student of financial history, but this is the normal state of play that the US financial markets generally outperform the rest of the world.
So actually, no, not really.
I suppose the second half of my career has been basically dominated by the US, but it's certainly not the case throughout the history time. Now, I guess the one thing that we do see a lot of is that because people have more data going back for the US market more than any other market, that you do generally see that the people using that as a benchmark for global equities when doing historical analysis, so the buying on
those sort of things. Long term investing US is obviously the starting point, but you do go through significant periods of underperformance for US equities from time to time. A key input for that from our perspective is, particularly on a sort of cyclical basis, is what happens to the dollar. So in a strong dollar environment, US equities generally outperform. When the dollar is definitively weak, you usually see non
US equities outperform. You can see over the last ten years as well, we've seen the dollar generally in an up trend, So that fits with that piesis of why the US is doing well?
Why does the US generally outperform? I know you mentioned a couple factors there, but historically and maybe even just more recently the past few years, you know what's really driven US out performance? Is it one sector? For example? We look at Ai, is it the dollar? Like what is it?
Yees?
So I think there's two things, right, So firstly, maybe look at the competition hasn't been that strong.
So we've seen in.
Europe obviously going through pretty challenging times on a multi year basis, whether you talk about sovereign debt crises or just very very anemic growth, a lack of innovation, greater regulation since the Global financial crisis as well, So those sort of factors sort of inhibit the growth there. China, obviously, growth is still relatively strong to the rest of the world, but it's on a deceleration path and we're talking about
concerns about debt deflation cycle in China. So when you've got all those things out there, it suggests that the competition against the US isn't that grade. And then yes, when you look at the US story, we talked about innovation obviously a major major piece of the US outperformance. Technology driving that You mentioned that obviously the mag seven that has been a major port. So you're seeing a lot of more concentration risk being taken and that's what's
been driving this out performance. So it's both the strong domestic fundamentals in the US, but also weakness elsewhere.
We're seeing some threat to that potentially. You know, before we started recording, John and I were talking about deep seek and the effect that that had on capital markets, but also on just overall sentiment with technology and AI in the US perhaps looking more overpriced now. And also the fact that she met in China with a lot of tech executives, which sort of shows perhaps a greater focus on that sector going forward.
I guess you need to balance a couple of things, right, So clearly so far this year, for instance, actually Europe has been one of the best performance right at performing the US. So there's a question of whether this US exceptionism will continue on a multi year basis. I think if we look at the just at the pure fundamentals, it was suggests yes, U exceptionism can continue for some time to come, and certainly we are still overweight US equities on a six to twelve month view.
That's to some.
Degree policy agenda, which I'm sure we'll get to from a US perspective. But I think there's also the other side is it's not just the story or the fundamentals that matters. It's also matters what's priced. And so if we're looking at relative valuations between the US and elsewhere, and we can look at Asia, we can look at
Europe as well, those relative valuations are very extreme. So one of my favorite saying things, I think it's George Soros said that most of the money is made when things go from really really awful to just awful, right,
you know, because of those extreme valuations. And I think that's what's seeing at the moment is things are getting less bad elsewhere, and that's encouraging people to sort of reduce their underweight positions or their short positions in non US equities, and that's leading to short term out performance. I guess the question is, you know, we've had false dawns before in this space. Is this another one of those?
And we'll just get the resumption of the norm of.
US exceptionalism as we go through the rest of the year, and our sense is this it's too early to sort of move away from the US, but obviously we're watching with a huge interest.
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And Steve, you've been around for a few decades, as you mentioned, and I do remember there was a time in the early two thousands when it wasn't all dominated by the US. I do remember that there were some European tech companies that were leaders in mobile phones. European banks were challenging the US bulge bracket investment banks. Although you know, yeah, they're no longer a challenge arguably now. But tell us like, it hasn't always been this case, has it?
No, it hasn't.
I mean, I still remember the Nokia of that era. Nobody would ever own another side that. I'm right, I mean, it was that's a slight exaggeration that it was Erickson as well.
Yeah, true, that.
Was my first phone.
Mine was a Nokia.
It was a brick, right, you could throw and really do serious damage. So look, so it hasn't always been the case, obviously in some ways it's difficult sy what gets it back? I think that the global financial crisis was a really big factor in this in terms of obviously that you mentioned the banks there, the regulation that came through following the Global financial crisis that hit the
banking sector obviously very hard generally. But we've had a lot of deregulation since in the US, and I think that certainly helped the margin as well in terms of driving shareholder returns. We can argue what the connotations will be for the safety of the banking sector of the future, especially if deregulation continues, but that certainly helped as well. So, you know, I think we need to get to a point where innovation.
Is more embraced.
But you know, again, if you look at the AI space, Europe is already started to move in the regulation sphere there whereas in the US, regulation is becoming almost a four letter word as far as the policymakers are concerned. So the AI space looks like it's still going to be led by the US and maybe to some degree China as well, rather than coming out of Europe.
And we also have to ask the elephant in the room now President Trump his protectionist policies is tariffs. Does this add to the idea of US exceptionalism or does it detract from it?
So I think this is one of the reasons that we're overweight the US market at the moment still despite those extreme valuations, is we believe that a lot of the policies that will be pursued will be positive for the economy in terms of growth. Obviously, we can talk about inflation. That's probably the biggest concern that we have is whether you know the import tariffs and immigration controls
will lead to higher inflation. I think it certainly will put the brake on inflation coming lower to significant extent. But you know, we do think that that's going to help ensure that the stock market in the US does well. And obviously, if you're important're putting import tariffs on, that is detrimental to risk appetite in some of the parts of the world. And obviously we saw the tariffs being announced on Mexico and Canada and then being rolled back
very quickly. If that was to happen, then you get the uncertainty, but you don't get the hit necessary to corporate earnings. I think the key thing here is is really how much of a this is Bart versus Biden. But I think the influence comes via the dollar. So our senses the dollar is in the process of peaking.
Here.
You obviously seen the dollar weeken, not massively, but reasonably significantly from the heights, and I think from that perspective, you know, if we have seen the peak of the dollar and we're moving definitively lower and we got increasing confidence from our perspective, but also from the market investors' perspective, I think that would then lead to much more sustained interest in non US equities. So most parts are going
to be important. If they're all bark and no bit it, ultimately dollars should come lower and that should support actually it will support US equities as well, by the way, because a week of dollar is good for all equity markets, not just non US equity markets, but it does change their relative performance as well.
Can we talk about some of the risks on the horizon. I know you've said, you know, will US exceptionalism continue on a multi year basis earlier, and I wanted to see if you had some potential answers to that, or at least things that potentially are headwinds. For example, President
Trump's policies. While on the one hand they could really strengthen the dollar and they could be good for companies, there's also some risks of stakeflation in the US potentially slower growth now, especially with this wave of tariffs in recent weeks. So could you talk a bit about that.
Yes, So it's really interesting.
So we've just finished twenty twenty five Outlook road show where we go to countries around Asia, Africa and the Middle East. So you know, we presented it almost ten thousand clients on that and in the private bank events we were basically we asked people the question, okay, so what's the biggest risk? Right and consistently outside of Hong Kong we can talk a little bit about that. The
top two risks were trade tariffs and inflation. Now, from our perspective, trade tariffs is the highest probability thing to worry.
About, right, because that's going to happen.
It's just a degree to which it happens and how it's rolled out and how it might be rolled back at some point in the future. But from an investor perspective, the number one risk, and it's a tail risk that's not a central scenario, is that inflation surges again, and that basically then comes back to sort of being in twenty twenty two reducts right where we saw bond yields
going up and equity markets coming down. So the diversification benefits of bonds relative to equities really wasn't there anything to the degree we've seen historically, And actually the way we categorize twenty twenty two was it's the second worst investment climate in the past one hundred and fifty years, So it was a massive outlier. The ar is that was something that we could see come back, and obviously we do know that some of his policies are potentially inflationary.
Now it depends who you talk to.
Of course, the FED is obviously a little bit concerned,
but not overly concerned at the moment. But Trump is saying this is not an issue, of course, right, So inflation's going to come lower and therefore interest rates should come lower, but it's a tail risk, so probably ten percent probability, But it was the one that would have the biggest impact on investors because it would mean that, you know, the traditional asset allocation approach would face challenges again, so that sixty to forty equity.
Bond portfolio would perform poorly.
The way we think about this in the longer term is we sort of say, look, we believe that Trump wants to be business friendly, and a stock market is a key barometer for him on that journey. So if we did see his policies leading to market volatility, we would expect some sort of recalibration to make sure. And I think what was interesting with US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessant he shifted the conversation at least temporarily from what the Fed should do to focusing on the ten year yield.
I think the soft message there was saying, look, we're not going to do anything that's going to push the ten year yield higher, and I think that should be something that makes investors more comfortable. But obviously inflation is the key tail risk.
So the you mentioned Scott Besson's comments there, we were trying to unpack that when it came out. I think a lot of people are trying to unpack those comments when they came out. So you're saying, from your view as an investor, you kind of took that not in the sense that they're going to, like Japan or the Bank of Japan start engineering or trying to move around the ten year Now.
The way I view this is that I think Scott Bessant is Trump's attempt to give him the cloud cover to do what he wants. So he wants a credible Treasury secretary not to sort of change the policies that he wants to implement, but better sell them to markets so that it don't lead to like a Lisz trust moment in the bond market, for instance, that obviously would
be very damaging for what they're trying to achieve. So that's the way I view Besson's job actually is not necessarily as much on the policy front, but to sell policy. Now there's no guarantees of course that works, and it is quite possible that he and Trump at some point will fall out and we'll have a different Treasury secretary.
But I think that's the sort of thought process at the moment, and you know, so, yes, there's a sensible person in the room, but there's also a salesman trying to sell what they're doing as not being detrimental to the inflation outlook to the economy and therefore reassuring markets that everything's okay, okay.
So you believe that the Trump administration is can be very pragmatic, especially to financial markets. So if tariffs do become inflationary, then they may possibly sort of dull back their actions.
Yeah, we've already seen obviously roll back in some areas. I think they will be selective where they're more willing to roll back and areas where they'll be less willing to roll back. So I think, and that's more of a gear political conversation. So if you think about a two by two matrix, you're an ally or not an ally, and you have a huge deficit or not a huge deficit, you obviously want to be an ally and not huge
US deficit with you. If you're in the other category with you're not necessarily an ally, but you have a huge surplus with the US, then probably that's going to be a more challenging area. So I think, yes, there's going to be a lot of I mean, Europe is obviously going to be an interesting case study because obviously historically an ally there's intensions do seem to be rising, not Jack's in trade, but also political tensions between Europe and the US. So how that plays out it's going
to be very interesting. But I think on the trade side they'd be more willing to threaten, maybe even implement, but then quickly backtrack if Europe plays the game. So that's the way that we see it happening.
So, given Trump's policies being on net pretty good for US stocks over the next let's say four years, is there any reason for people to invest outside of the US to get US Yeah, I mean probably exactly. We're based here in Hong Kong. It makes me think of, you know, if we have a situation where there will be tariffs coming in and pretty broad tariffs, you know, not just you have ten percent so we're going to
give ten percent. It's also on things like VAT and taxes and subsidies and some of these foreign countries that for a company looking to invest abroad or you know FDI, any kind of FDI, you're gonna be thinking, well, where can I actually go that won't be hurt by tariffs, and so is it sort of US exceptionalism because there are limited places to get gains elsewhere? Or is there maybe an argument that you should be overweight in these other countries?
So the main argument, I mean, are the ones for being overweight outside the US or what we've discussed right, So we're seeing some positive science in here, obviously the deep seek phenomena, but we also see the relative valuations as well, so that those are the two arguments. We don't think they're necessarily compelling enough to warrant overweighting assets equities outside the US. So we're overweight global equitism within that way, overweight the US, but overweight doesn't mean.
Zero allocation elsewhere.
And so you'd expect a CIO to come on and talk about diversification at some point. Of course, you should have exposure to Asian equities, you should have exposure to European equities and Japanese equities, etc.
So that's something that we truly believe in.
You know, nobody knows with one hundred percent surety what's going to happen going forward, So it could be that this performance of Europe is the start of a twelve month out performance.
It is possible.
It's not our central scenario, but that's another reason why you should have European equities in your portfolio as you go forward. So that diversification thing, I think is really important for people to remember. And if we look at investor behavior, it is very tempting for people to become
very narrow in their exposures. Right, So you know the mag seven and we've discussed, right, that's sort of something that can lead to very narrow exposures in the technology space, and we like going, yes, technology is the future, but it's priced quite high already. So it's not to say
that you shouldn't have exposure there. But if you're like saying, Okay, I'm invested fifty percent in the US equities and fifty percent in the Nasdaq, then I've got a massive exposure to US tech and maybe we should be looking at ways of diversifying that to say, Okay, this can't go on forever. Whatever can't go on forever, at some point must stop, and therefore we should be just making sure
we're calibrating our exposures to diversify away. And you can do that through you know, okay, maybe instead of SMP exposure, I'll do SMP equal weighted and then I'll add in some international equity exposure as well and stiff.
You mentioned your global outlook where you visited in numerous cities, but you mentioned that Hong Kong the risks were different. What was the Hong Kong audience word of.
So obviously they were still worried about trade and inflation as well, but I think the additional one that they added in that actually was quite interesting. It wasn't elsewhere was the debt deflation risk in China, right, So elsewhere people really weren't focused on that, maybe because of the timing. Obviously, we're doing this around the time of the US inauguration, so you know, it's obviously front and center of the news, whereas China moved a little bit off the front and center.
But debt deflation cycle in China was obviously high on their agenda as well, and that fed into.
The other question.
We asked them, are you optimistic, neutral, or worried about twenty twenty five? And Hong Kong rated the highest on you know, worried about twenty twenty five, And I guess that's also a proximity to China conversation as well, we can argue and step back and say, wait a second, China is still going to grow about four and a
half five percent growth this year. Not many people can match that, but I think when you look at the nominal the Deceller nominal growth, so real growth coming down, but also inflation coming down, and you add in the high debt levels, then clearly that is something that we need to manage. And the way we see this playing out is it's just going to be a muddle through
economy going forward. And the reason we think that is because while investors in Chinese equities are saying, why aren't we making sure inflation's going up?
Right? So we really need.
To avoid deflation, and I don't think the authorities would be disagreeing with that. They're also very cognizant that just laying on debt on debt on debt is not a solution to the problem either, So they're taking a much
more balanced view of this. And maybe they're also waiting to see what Trump's going to do and say, okay, if we're going to do something, you know, a mini two thousand and eight two thousand and nine in terms of fiscal stimulus, then maybe we'll wait until we can have maximum impact of that on sentiment on the markets, And probably that's better to do after Trump has decided what he's going to do on China rather than before and then see the euphoria way later.
Does it make it harder during this period of time where the US is outperforming and we have these America first policies? Does it make it harder for other countries to sort of stand out and their equity markets to stand out and garner investment? Like I'm thinking for example of Vietnam, they're aiming for eight percent GDP growth this year, which is going to be very tricky, but they're trying to engineer through fiscal and hopefully monetary stimulus where used
to do that. So yeah, does it make it kind of trickier when you have this one kind of giant in the room.
It certainly does. So there's two elements that writes them.
From a growth perspective, It's very difficult to form policies for the rest of the year because you don't exist in a vacuum. So historically you'd like, go, okay, I'm not going to be hugely blindsided by policies out of the US. Now, that's obviously not a given, So you need to acknowledge that decisions you may take today might want to revisit tomorrow based on something that the US
might do. And obviously the China plus one strategy will come under increasing strutiny and will continue to do so under a Trump administration. One would think the second thing then is you know, okay, what does this mean for
my financial markets as another country elsewhere? And again that's not totally in your control, of course, but one thing that investors hate is uncertainty, and one thing that we all know we're going to have lots of is uncertainty, and so that increases the risk premium potentially on your assets unless you can find a way to come up
with a model that is actually much more resistant. And I think this is a broader point geopolitical point is I think the one thing that countries globally have to do, and I don't think this is just for the next four years now, is if I'm reliant on the US for anything, I need to really try and figure out how it can be more resilient. And that can be either trade, which is the obvious one or it can
be foreign aid, or it can be military cover. We're seeing all three areas being hugely scrutinized in the US at the moment. And if you're reliant on the US in a significant way in either of those three spares, then that's probably where you should be spending your time as a policymaker in trying to say, what can I
do to reduce my reliance strategically on the US. And I think that's I don't think that's actually long term good for the US, but I think, you know, it is something that policymakers and governments really have to think about more and more nowadays.
How chaotic is this time right now for you? We were just chatting before the recording about you moving to Singapore in the midst of the Asia financial crisis. I mean, how does this time compare with other errors?
So obviously this is more of a slow burn, and the Asian financial crisis of the global financial crisis, right, that was extremely chaotic and things were changing structurally or what the risks were changing exponentially within days, right, So it was really I mean I was here for the Korean devaluate during the Asian financial crisis, That's one of my first when I was twenty five, when I moved to Singapore. Right, that was a real education on what
can go wrong. Obviously the global financial market at one point it looked like the system was going to collapse, and COVID as well. You know, again, very different situation, but something equally scary. This almost feels a bit more entertainment value rather than really really scary. But that doesn't mean it's not scary. I think, you know, you can take a geopolitical lens of saying, look, we're moving now from a unilateral world to a multipolar world. That's not
new information. We've known that for some time. That increases uncertainty and will lead to things that we don't for see today. In the extreme, obviously, that leads to military conflict. So just because it feels entertaining and we know we're going to get new information on a daily basis and you're going to maybe roll your eyes at some stuff, applaud other things, etc. But the long term implications here I think are going to be much more broader felt
than COVID and things like this. That's probably the bigger concern longer term, rather than what happens this year.
So, Steve, you came to Asia during the Asian financial crisis in the late nineteen nineties, so that means that you also went through the tech bubble in late nineteen ninety nine. Now some pundits are drawing analogies to the elevated stock valuations now and the tech bubble of the nineties.
What's your view there, So it's a really good question, right, So, I mean, as then you had market leaders, right, you had businesses that don't really make money, but people still valuing them hugely and will see that today. I guess my thoughts here are I think that's the way we're heading. I'm not sure where the end of ninety nine beginning of two thousand yet, because I don't think the euphoria
necessary is as high as it was then. And one of the things that we often get asked about is we talked about relative valuations, but even US valuations on a standalone basis are reasonably high, but they're not at late nineteen nineties highs. And so from that perspective of my set scenarios that we still probably have a little bit of a melt up in terms of you know, stock prices generally maybe on the tech.
Side as well.
Before we see that peak form. I think we're not an excessive optimism yet, so from our perspective, we still have some road. Again, the risk manager in me says, okay, but we don't know. It is possible that we are, you know, the beginning of two thousand now and we could see the peak in the market. That is obviously a potential outcome. So again we talked about diversifying within equities, but also diversifying outside of equerders. We think bond yields
are pretty attractive in this environment. So you know, if you think back two years ago, three years ago, people would say, oh, I'd kill for a five percent yield.
Well, now you can get IG bonds as.
A seven percent yield, right, So you sort of say, okay, that's not a bad place to have an allocation too, even if it's just to protect your wealth, but also as a counterbalance to equity markets.
In case we are wrong and we.
Do see that surgeon in or we do see a recession coming down the path, then maybe having ancation there makes more sense and you'll be more protected this time, even if it's inflation. Because the baseline of interest rates is higher, so the coupons you're clipping a higher that gives you a lot more protection than you had the beginning of twenty twenty two.
And do you also have a view on other assets potentially gold.
Yeah.
Our challenge here is we've already hit our full year target, so I think from our perspective, well yeah, actually I think this is the second year in three that that's happened to us, Like by february've hit our full year target. So I guess the challenge now is saying, Okay, how
much of this should we extrapolate and revise higher. I think our sense is that the structural outlook for gold is positive, and part of this is the geopolitical conversation, and a lot of people focus on individual investors or institutional investors, but obviously there's also a central bank element to this in terms of, you know, the sanctioning of the Russian Central Bank really some shop ways through the
central bank community. And if you're not fully aligned with the US and Europe, then and obviously you want to diversify as much as away from US assets as you can. There's not a lot you can do because they're the deepest financial markets, but one thing you can do is add to your gold holdings and actually physically really okate your gold as well. So it's not under the Bank of England, it's probably in your own country. So I
think that's something that still hasn't fully played out. If you look at what central banks have been doing, you saw a massive increase in twenty twenty two of gold purchases from central banks. Unsurprisingly, that's still elevated and if you look at intentions, that's continuing to accelerate. So we see that as a strong source of demand for gold. So we have about of five to seven percent allocation
of gold in our portfolios. That's obviously helped us really well so far this year, and we can see the long term up trend for gold as being intact.
Maybe got a bit.
Ahead of itself in the short term, but certainly buying on dips if we get down to sort of two thousand and six fifty would be a really I think you'd be lucky to get it down there, but maybe even two seven fifty, that's probably a decent place to start accumulating gold again.
So, Steve, you had mentioned this risk of inflation and what potentially can happen in the States, but also globally. Of course, tariffs would not help in that regard. So if we do get that situation, whether it's stake inflation or another kind of resurgence in inflation which no one wants to see, what do investors do? How can investors play that?
Yes, so I.
Guess the default answer would probably be what we just discussed in terms of gold, Right, So gold is you know, over the long term at least is a good inflation edge, and actually so our equity is over the long period, but obviously the short term dynamics would be quite challenging. I think then you're looking at diversifying beyond sort of public markets, and really so private credit is probably a
good place to be. Yes, that would come with some economic concerns, but at least their floating rate exposures that you're taking, So if interest rates did have to go up, then you'd be benefiting from that. So that would provide some sick nificant diversification for investors. Infrastructure is obviously a grade inflation protection as well, or hedge against inflation of
a reasonably short period of time. Actually, because often they're inflation linked in terms of the payouts they offer, and then the final place would be obviously in the sort of hedge fund space. So whether you know, we can talk about equity long short, that's usually a difficult place to be because it often has a correlation with equities. If you can get a good market neutral strategy in
that space, then that can work. But also if we're looking at the sort of macro strategies space where they can go long short and different assets, that is often a very good place to allocate. It's a bit like an insurance policy. So I think that's why it's difficult to get much traction in the macro strategy CTA space because you know, people say, well, it often doesn't do that well in normal times, but as with any insurance policy, it really pays off when you get that volatility on
the downside. So having an allocation and that's as well makes sense for us.
Steve, I wanted to before I let you go on to ask you a personal question. Now, you moved to Asia and you're twenty five. I think you mentioned during the Asian financial crisis to Singapore, you did stints in Dubai. I think South Africa you mentioned as well, and you studied and you grew up in England. But just wind the clock back if you're twenty five, now, where would you like to work and live?
I guess it depends which space you're in, right, So if you're in data science or something like that, I think the most interesting stuff you're going to be doing, or AI, you almost have to be in the US these days. I guess you maybe to some degree, some degree, you could be in China as well, So I think that's an interesting space. Obviously, it's going to be probably more constrained, but you know, strange you may get more
backing as well in the areas where they want to develop. Certainly, if I was to rewind the clock, I wouldn't change a thing. I always say that, you know, I got where I am today through the choices I've made, And yeah, of course I wouldn't do everything the same way, but yeah, I think it's where I ended up was a good space. I get to do fun things like this all right, and talk to interesting people. So Asia is still a huge powerhouse for the region. I just think it's going
to be that. Yeah, the US is going to be very interesting as well. Well.
It's been a great conversation Steve, thank you so much for joining us.
Thank you so much being a pleasure. As always, you've.
Been listening to Asia Centric from Bloomberg Intelligence. I'm Cartedmu Treeva here in Hong Kong. You can find me on LinkedIn or on the terminal.
And I'm John Lee. You can also find me on LinkedIn. This podcast was produced and edited by Clara Chen and thank you for listening to Asia Centric.
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