Lujiazui business district in Pudong, Shanghai, China.
Liu Liqun | Construction Photography | Hulton Archive | Getty Images
With a surge in initial public offerings, increased cross-border capital flows and accelerating trading activity, Asian stock markets are attracting global investors, underscoring the region’s growing importance in global capital markets, according to senior executives at JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs.
“It’s unbelievable what activity we’re seeing (in Asia),” JPMorgan’s Asia Pacific CEO Sjoerd Lienert told CNBC’s “Access Middle East” on Monday, adding that a significant portion of last year’s IPO volume came from the region. IPO proceeds in the Asia-Pacific region also more than doubled from last year, with seven of the top 10 global deals taking place in the region, according to EY data.
“We see this (activity) in the M&A market, but we see it in the stock market as well, and it’s actually quite widespread,” Lienert said.
The large inflows at the start of the year follow a strong 2025 in which several Asian equity benchmarks outperformed the US.
The MSCI AC Asia Pacific Index, which tracks more than 1,000 large- and mid-cap stocks across 13 regional markets, set multiple records this year and is up more than 25% in 2025. Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 and South Korea’s Kospi have also hit record highs in recent days.
Foreign inflows into the South Korean market are strong, with net inflows into South Korea-focused mutual funds this year amounting to about $1.3 billion as of mid-January, according to Goldman Sachs data.
Similarly, daily trading volumes on China’s Shanghai, Shenzhen and Beijing stock exchanges hit records this month, and regulators are tightening rules on margin lending.
According to a recent study by EY, Asia-Pacific will become the largest region for IPO revenues in 2025. The region saw a 106% increase in revenue compared to 2024, and India remained the world’s top active listing destination by number of deals.
“China and Hong Kong have played a big role in that. It’s great to see market confidence coming back,” Lienert said.
“I think the positive trends from 2025 are likely to take hold in 2026,” Lienert added. “The Chinese are doing everything they can to keep the economy stimulated, and people are betting on that.”
There is renewed interest in Asia as investors reassess how companies and markets are functioning amid continued geopolitical uncertainty. Kevin Sneader, Goldman Sachs’ former president of APAC Japan, told CNBC that markets have become adept at acting through volatility rather than waiting for it to pass.
“China, India, Japan, South Korea. They are attracting a lot of attention from international investors,” he said.
“It’s true that there’s a renewed interest in Asia and a renewed interest in China. Part of that comes from resiliency and, in fact, because of the impressive development of technology in this part of the world,” Sneader said, highlighting the Korean market and its semiconductor companies as the main beneficiary.
Technology companies Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix together account for more than 30% of the Kospi index, according to data from Yuanta Securities. SK Hynix has soared 274% in 2025 and is up 20% so far this year, according to LSEG data. Samsung Electronics soared 125% last year and is up 30% year-to-date.
Goldman Sachs expects Chinese stocks to rise about 20% this year. It also raised its 12-month target for Taiwan’s TAIEX to 34,600 companies from 32,400, suggesting an 8% upside on stronger-than-expected profit growth as demand for AI boosts the outlook and investment plans of TSMC, the world’s largest chipmaker.
Goldman said TSMC’s increased capital spending and continued tightness in advanced chips are driving profit forecasts across Taiwan’s broader semiconductor and hardware supply chain.
Late Monday, President Donald Trump announced he would raise tariffs on autos, medicine and lumber imported from South Korea from 15% to 25%, citing delays in Congressional approval of a trade deal with the United States signed last summer.
While some auto stocks fell, South Korea’s Kospi fell 0.6%.
“Tariffs are a part of life, and I think business leaders are learning to live with them and understand them,” Sneader said the day before. “In that context, what really matters is how their business is performing and, for investors, how they factor that into their decision-making.”
— CNBC’s Emily Tan contributed to this article.
