Asia Pacific equities excluding Japan rose 32% in USD terms last year, their best annual result since 2017. This happened despite trade and geopolitical tensions and wider policy uncertainty.<\/p>\n
The move was supported by a weaker US dollar, lower-than-feared effective tariff rates, and a US\u2013China trade truce. The report says current performance is being driven more by regional fundamentals.<\/p>\n
It lists macro reforms and economies that have reduced risks as key supportive factors. It also points to a positive outlook for GDP and corporate profits, resilient domestic demand, and progress on regional trade integration.<\/p>\n
The report links the region to the tech and AI cycle, noting strength in semiconductor manufacturing in Taiwan and South Korea. It also says Asian countries are among the strongest global contributors to the GitHub code repository.<\/p>\n
It adds that India and south-east Asian economies, including Singapore, Malaysia and Vietnam, are involved across the AI supply chain, from assembly to data centres. It also states that mainland China\u2019s tech development is tied to policy plans focused on AI, EVs, green energy and advanced manufacturing.<\/p>\n
We are seeing solid underlying fundamentals taking centre stage in Asian markets. This builds on the foundation from 2025, when we saw Asia Pacific stocks ex-Japan deliver a 32% gain, their best performance in years. Derivative traders should consider positioning for further upside by looking at call options on broad regional ETFs that capture this diversified growth.<\/p>\n
The AI supercycle is a primary catalyst, with Asia dominating the crucial semiconductor space. The latest data from early February 2026 shows global semiconductor sales for January rose 22% year-over-year, with Taiwanese and South Korean firms leading the expansion due to sustained AI-related demand. This suggests buying near-term call options on country-specific ETFs like the iShares MSCI Taiwan ETF (EWT) to gain leveraged exposure to this specific tailwind.<\/p>\n
This AI theme is also broadening to other economies like India and Vietnam, which are critical for assembly and data centre operations. Indian IT service companies just finished an earnings season where Q4 2025 results largely beat estimates on the back of new AI integration contracts, helping the NIFTY 50 index reach new highs last week. We think bull call spreads on key Indian technology stocks could offer a cost-effective way to participate in this trend.<\/p>\n
Policy-driven growth is also a key factor, particularly in mainland China where Beijing has reiterated its focus on AI, EVs, and advanced manufacturing. Despite this constructive outlook, the region\u2019s valuations remain compelling, with the MSCI AC Asia ex Japan Index trading at a forward price-to-earnings ratio of 14, a significant discount to the S&P 500\u2019s 21. Given this valuation cushion, selling cash-secured puts on select high-quality names could be a viable strategy to generate income.<\/p>\n
Create your live VT Markets account<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0start trading<\/a>\u00a0now. <\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Asia Pacific ex-Japan equities rose 32% in USD, boosted by dollar weakness, reforms, and AI-linked tech growth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":62,"featured_media":16984,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41973","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-live-updates"],"acf":{"acf_article_selection_author":null},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarkets.com\/en-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41973","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarkets.com\/en-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarkets.com\/en-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarkets.com\/en-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/62"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarkets.com\/en-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41973"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarkets.com\/en-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41973\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarkets.com\/en-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16984"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarkets.com\/en-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41973"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarkets.com\/en-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41973"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarkets.com\/en-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41973"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}