Institutional Research

Nomura argues that market stress linked to US policy has rebuilt sharply since late August. The recent rise is now driven mainly by higher 10-year Treasury yields, amid inflation concerns, higher energy prices and resilient US activity.

• Nomura’s market-stress indicator reached a recent high of +2.8 standard deviations, up from -0.10 standard deviations on 27 August.
• The initial increase reflected weaker US equities and subsequently higher global energy prices.
• Since 10 September, the rise has been driven predominantly by the increase in the 10-year US Treasury yield.
• Nomura says pressure is building on the US administration to moderate aggressive policy actions or rhetoric.

Morgan Stanley maintains Meta as a Top Pick and Overweight with a $775 price target. The report argues that new retail connectors, voice and wearable integration, and improved VR glasses broaden Muse's long-term commercial potential while Meta's core advertising, engagement and efficiency trends continue to improve.

• Muse added retail integrations with Walmart, Best Buy, Dick's Sporting Goods, Gap and others.
• Morgan Stanley estimates a roughly $30 trillion total consumer-spend addressable market for agentic offerings.
• Meta plans Muse Voice, AR-glasses integration, Apple-computer integration, email functionality and wider international availability.
• New lightweight Meta VR glasses are expected to launch in spring at $1,299.
• The $775 target is based on roughly 23x the average of Morgan Stanley's 2027 and 2028 EPS estimates of $34 and $35.

Nomura argues that Taiwan and Korea are benefiting disproportionately from AI-related technology exports, while parts of Southeast Asia face wider external deficits and a worsening oil terms-of-trade shock. It expects the divergence to leave Southeast Asia more vulnerable to external financing conditions and currency depreciation.

• Northeast Asia's current-account surplus reached a record USD538bn on a 12-month rolling basis to July 2026.
• Taiwan and Korea capture more AI upside through higher-value upstream technology supply-chain positions.
• Thailand's import-intensive data-centre investment contributes to persistent electronics trade deficits.
• Higher oil prices worsen Southeast Asia's terms of trade, especially in Thailand, the Philippines and Indonesia.
• Nomura expects stronger external buffers in Northeast Asia and greater currency vulnerability in Southeast Asia.

Bernstein argues that AI servers are shifting MLCC demand toward technically demanding, higher-priced products where Murata has a material miniaturization and manufacturing advantage. It rates Murata Outperform with a ¥10,000 target price.

• AI data-center power demand is projected to grow at a 19% CAGR through 2030E.
• The data-center MLCC market is forecast to rise from about US$2.8bn in 2024 to US$27.7bn by 2032E.
• Bernstein expects Murata's AI data-center MLCC share to increase from 47% in 2025 to 76% in 2031E.
• Murata's capacitor revenue is projected to grow at a 23% CAGR over the next five years, driven by premium product mix and higher ASPs.
• The report expects cutting-edge MLCC prices to rise 15–30% near term and 5–10% longer term amid persistent supply tightness.

Goldman Sachs argues that AI shopping agents can gradually extend eCommerce from discovery into purchasing and payment over the next 3-5+ years. The report identifies potential long-term beneficiaries across AI platforms, commerce infrastructure, payments, identity, fraud prevention, cybersecurity, and primary ticketing.

• $2.6tn of near-term US consumer spending is identified as potentially addressable for agentic commerce.
• Roughly 2% penetration of high-likelihood card-present categories could add about 1 percentage point to total eCommerce growth.
• Adoption should be gradual, beginning with lower-risk, recurring, and commoditized purchases.
• Card networks, identity providers, fraud platforms, and cybersecurity vendors could benefit as authorization and verification needs rise.
• The strategic battle centers on who controls product discovery, consumer intent, distribution economics, and customer relationships.

The report sees Meesho as a direct beneficiary of India’s expanding value-commerce market, supported by an asset-light model, logistics orchestration and AI-led engagement. However, Nomura’s INR 167 DCF target implies 28.0% downside from INR 232 because the shares trade at a premium to faster-growing quick-commerce peers.

• Nomura forecasts approximately 23% NMV CAGR over FY27-30F.
• Annual transacting users are projected to grow about 19% CAGR, while order frequency rises about 5% CAGR.
• Contribution margin is forecast to rise to 7.8% and marketplace adjusted EBITDA margin to 2.9% of NMV by FY30F.
• Negative working capital of about 29 days is expected to support FCF, projected at 3.8% of NMV by FY30F.
• The report identifies 3PL disruption and intensifying competition as threats to margin improvement.

The refreshed ASEAN scorecard identifies relative opportunities in Vietnam staples and Indonesian staples and discretionary, while UBS cautions that Thailand discretionary's top ranking is momentum-driven and that Philippines consumer conditions remain difficult. Rising input costs and a widening PPI-over-CPI gap could pressure margins over coming quarters.

• Vietnam staples is UBS's preferred subsector, supported by macro conditions and healthy underlying growth despite tougher 2027 comparisons.
• Indonesia staples and discretionary screen attractively on resilient demand and deep valuation discounts versus history.
• Thailand discretionary ranks first mechanically, but Central Retail's 68% YTD rally and UBS's Neutral rating temper the conclusion.
• A 10% rise in key raw-material costs could cut FMCG EBIT margins by about 125bp and earnings by about 8% on average.
• PPI growth exceeds CPI growth across most ASEAN-6 markets except the Philippines, indicating input-cost pressure may be outpacing pricing power.

Draft centralized-procurement rules covering seven biosimilars are expected to curb aggressive bidding through their design and policy focus. Bevacizumab is likely to be the key product, while Sino Biopharm and Innovent have notable affected-sales exposure.

• The proposed tender covers seven biosimilars; pertuzumab has been removed.
• Bevacizumab generated over RMB14 billion of hospital sales in 2025 and has 14 competing manufacturers including the originator.
• The report expects price cuts near historical industry averages rather than rock-bottom levels.
• Affected products accounted for 8% of Sino Biopharm’s and 28% of Innovent’s total product sales in 1H26.

HSBC expects broad housing inventory to decline at an 11-13% CAGR in 2025-30e, faster than the 10% decline in 2023-25, as reduced land investment and new starts constrain supply. It prefers Buy-rated COLI, CR Land and KE Holdings.

• New-home supply in 80 key cities fell 17% year-on-year in 8M26, to 12% of the 2019 full-year peak.
• Land acquisitions fell a further 20% year-on-year, limiting the prospect of a meaningful supply-pipeline rebuild.
• Secondary-market transaction volumes rose 11% year-on-year in 8M26 while total housing transactions were down 2%.
• HSBC sees the supply theme becoming increasingly relevant from 2027 onward.

UBS sees Chinese AI models narrowing the capability gap while retaining cost advantages in many use cases, although regulation, anti-distillation measures and tougher global competition complicate the outlook. The report expects mass-market model pricing to deflate while frontier models retain pricing power through better task success and token efficiency.

• Listed model companies MiniMax and Zhipu were down about 20% and 40% month-to-date, respectively, amid shifting competitive concerns.
• UBS expects continued per-token price deflation for volume-oriented AI tasks as developers introduce lower-cost Flash models.
• Frontier models may sustain higher prices because stronger task performance and lower token use can reduce cost per successful task.
• Chinese labs are expanding overseas through enterprise collaborations, cloud partnerships and model availability on AWS Bedrock.
• Recent financing is expected to fund larger compute capacity and next-generation model training.