Asian stock prices unlikely to rally much further

The intense focus on the Federal Reserve may have also oversimplified the underlying drivers of regional performance. The policies to limit the fallout from capital flight such as policy tightening, government spending and handout cuts have already seen economic growth in some parts of the region such as Southeast Asian economies weakening and credit growth slowing.

UBS Equity Research went further to say better corporate earnings growth as well as improvements in regional current account balances are keys to performance of Asian stocks. These factors are in turn depending very much on export growth of economies in the region.

While leading economic indicators, the main ones being purchasing managers indices for each country, rose into expansionary territory in the third quarter, the Swiss research house pointed out that export growth has been disappointing in the region where trade drives much of the economic output and where a lot of optimistic earnings estimates are pinned on a US recovery boosting demand for the region's technological products and cars.

"We need to see much stronger export growth in emerging (Asian) markets," wrote UBS Equity Research. If the macro-fundamental of the region does not undergo big change for the better, the research house will recommend cutting positions in Asian equities.

Likewise, CIMB Research also concluded if Asian stocks continue to rise toward year-end, "we would look to trim positions going into this rally rather than chase it higher."

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