Asia Thematic Alpha: Asian Plays on the Capex Super-Cycle

Research evidence excerpt

Asia Thematic Alpha: Asian Plays on the Capex Super-Cycle

Idea

May 13, 2026 09:00 PM GMT

Morgan Stanley Asia (Singapore) Pte.+MAsia Thematic Alpha | Asia Pacific Daniel K Blake

Equity Strategist

Asian Plays on the Capex Super- Daniel.Blake@morganstanley.comKristal Ji +65 6834-6597

Kristal.Ji@morganstanley.com +65 6834-6949

Cycle Morgan Stanley Asia Limited+

Ehsernta Fu

Asia Pacific equities continue to benefit from index skews to Equity Strategist

Ehsernta.Fu@morganstanley.com +852 3963-3711

compute, commodities and capital goods. The surge in AI capex

Morgan Stanley & Co. International plc, Seoul Branch+

is driving the ramp in AI enabler earnings, but we also see a Joon Seok

broader capex pipeline across defence and economic security Equity Analyst

Joon.Seok@morganstanley.com +82 2 399-4934

driving industrial and commodity opportunities.

Morgan Stanley Asia (Singapore) Pte.+

Asia's upstream advantages: Asia has been well positioned to capture the benefits Jonathan F Garner

of the global surge in AI capex, as well as a still-gathering public spending upswing Jonathan.Garner@morganstanley.com +65 6834-8172

on energy security and defence. Breaking down the index by Economic Exposure

groups, we see that more than 50% of the index weight of Asia/EM is comprised of Exhibit 1 : MSCI Index breakdown by

Compute (Semis/Hardware), Commodities, Capital Goods and Real Assets. Earnings Economic Exposure - Asia/EM offers a

growth continues to look compelling at the Compute layer, but valuations and compelling mix of Compute, Commodities and

positioning have moved up accordingly. Capital Goods

Cyclicals compelling: We maintain a contrarian OW stance across Commodities, US

which also benefits from the capex super-cycle but has more valuation support vs.

Europe 7%